Raynor's Raiders
by RelentlessRecusant
Summary: It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. It was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair. This is the continuation of the story of James Raynor - and Raynor's Raiders.
1. Bend Sinister

**Starcraft: Raynor's Raiders**

**A Continuation of Raynor's Raiders **(**2006-2007**)

RELENTLESS

Stanford University School of Medicine

Genome Institute of Singapore

* * *

**About the Author and the Series**

The author, Relentless, was formerly a Fan Fiction Moderator at SCO, where under the pseudonym of "X9", he wrote the popular "Raynor's Raiders" series from 2006-2007. The work contained within is a spiritual continuation of the former series, but entirely redesigned, taking into account various elements from _Starcraft II_, and with an entirely different plot and cast of characters. In-universe, the story is set in 2504 – four years after the Brood War and chronologically at the same time that _Starcraft II_ begins, albeit with a plot divergent from the game.

Critical critiques would be much appreciated. The author is presently at the Genome Institute of Singapore and has been accepted as a PhD student to Stanford University School of Medicine. His personal research interests regard embryonic stem cells and lineage reprogramming.

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* * *

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**CHAPTER ONE**

**THE BEND SINISTER**

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness … it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair…"

Charles Dickens (1859), _A Tale of Two Cities_, Dominion Archives for Significant Holographic, Cinematic, and Written Terran Works

* * *

**Logistical Support Area Chenoweth, Terran Dominion Fifth Fleet Expeditionary Logistics Command**

**Bountiful, 36 Aegis System, Korprulu Sector**

THE antediluvian wooden doors came apart to admit a towering figure standing in the doorway. What little he could discern through the sudden ejecta of wooden shrapnel struck him as obscene, inhuman.

There stood a massive mechanical automaton of imposing stature—cinematically highlighted by the brilliance of the hallway beyond. Though the juggernaut was of humanoid shape and proportion, its analog to a head—a half sphere of polarized glassine armor inscribed with a leering skull—made it bereft of any lingering traces of humanity. Its oversized forearms were fused to its shoulders with obvious mechanical articulations. Metallic vertebrae ran from its armored midsection to its waist.

Four penetrating neon lights burned brilliantly on its chest, projecting forward vanes of brilliant austere light that pierced the darkness. As the figure shifted forward, he saw the massive mechanical vices that the automaton had for hands—clutching an oversized weapon that had a trill of greasy smoke running from its tip. The weapon seemed to tremor with its own feral glee, an unconcealed bloodlust.

The juggernaut bounded forward two steps, clearing whatever filigree remained of the door, then focused its chest-mounted spotlights and weapon sight on the curled, fetal figure writhing on the floor.

"Doc?"

The voice was flat, mechanical, bereft of all human intonation.

A fortissimo of machine gun fire rattled outside, providing a bass beat that pulsated within the room, dislodging flakes of chipped paint from the walls.

His trembling eyes met the juggernaut's fearsome visage—the massive figure readied his weapon acutely on him, as if assigning all its attention and powers of observation upon the emaciated man that huddled before it.

His own voice was thin—reedy, atrophied from months of disuse. It emerged as a croak.

"Yes."

There was an abrupt mechanical rattle—he flinched, hugging his face against his legs and awaiting the last brilliant flash that would herald the end.

One—

Three—

Finally ten frantic heartbeats passed; his pulse still swam, and he still perceived acutely the nauseous odor of greasy oil and the distant thunderclaps.

He raised his unkempt head from his fetal ball to see what had prompted the original noise.

A polarized visor had lifted; the juggernaut now had a face—the face of the most notorious outlaw in the Outer Rim. As the suit's internal lighting defined and illuminated the face—the chiseled brown eyes, the satisfactory smile, the sweat-bound, ragged black hair—he could hardly contain his surprise.

"Jim Raynor?"

Crimson sheets of lightning pulsed outside—capital ship battery fire—intermittingly lighting the renegade's face as the man withdrew a cigarette from one of his ammo pouches and slotted it between the lips before the chit self-lit itself.

"Yeah."

He took a deep breath, and then exhaled into the hyperborean air of the saferoom.

"I'm back."

* * *

The new half hour was so peculiar—after being imprisoned for four years in this sepulchral Dominion gulag, everything had atrophied; his body, his musculature, his lungs, his intellect—his pride. Even now, he still hung his head; used to being treated no better than a mangy stray at the hands of the resocialized psychopaths and serial offenders that the Dominion had indoctrinated into running this prison.

As his hearing began to recover, he caught phrases from the background hum of military communications chatter that permeated the now-liberated prison. Raynor's Raiders—the freedom fighters or terrorists (depending on whose opinion you sought)—were back. Though his scholarly background had prepared him little to understand the military verbiage and codewords that slid through the radio, he now understood that the Raiders had staged an obviously successful attack against LSA Chenoweth, and from the exultant vulgarities and rejoicings that came through the comm, he surmised that the raid had gone very well and that the Dominion troops had been almost completely been dispatched.

Once or twice, he thought he heard pleas from some Dominion commanders to surrender—these were unconditionally met by chatters of automatic fire in the background. Clearly, the insurgents had little mercy to tender for the peons of the police state that had attempted to exterminate them for the past four years. Raynor's Raiders appeared to have little acquaintance with the rules of humane warfare that the terrans had once established a long time ago on Earth … Ironically, "humane" warfare was tossed out the window upon the entrance of two xenophobic races to the Korprulu Sector—the protoss and the zerg—who had announced their presence by vaporizing a dozen terran worlds and then proceeded to systematically slaughter whatever few survivors were left.

This was all four years ago … before the Maginot Line encircling the Inner Colonies had been burst apart, before the military police had arrested everybody at the University—before Tarsonis fell and the Terran Dominion rose from the ashes of the Terran Confederacy to subjugate the few terran survivors in the Korprulu Sector.

Too much had changed—the terror as the floodgates of the sky burst and alien warships were flung down the heavens, the pregnant cry he had released as Dominion troops discovered his hiding place at the University, the shrill screams as the prison wardens drilled into his spine the tracking bug to eternally prevent his escape.

And now, suddenly, the doors of the prison were flung open; victorious rebels in Marine power armor now paraded in the exercise courts and parade grounds as aircraft touched down and the unmistakable silhouette of a rebel battlecruiser stood in the sky astride the clouds.

After their surprise meeting, Raynor had rushed off to coordinate the ongoing assault elsewhere in the prison—a security detail of Marines had been assigned to guard Gardner while the rest of the Dominion troops were exterminated.

Gardner's gaze was drifting over the prison airfield, where dropships marked in rebel colors were offloading ponderous SCVs—undoubtedly to steal the prison's bountiful supplies—as the heavy clank of footsteps sounded, and he turned crisply to find Raynor's prominent figure, striding through his troops.

Raynor was largely how he had looked scarcely half an hour ago, except the holographic ammo counter on his gauss rifle read several hundred less rounds, more smoke bristled from the tip of his rifle, and several new neosteel welts had been impressed upon his armor.

He jabbed a massive mechanical figure at Gardner.

"Well rested, Doc?"

"Yes."

"They fried the spine bug?"

"Yes, thank you."

Raynor indicated a room—the prison commandant's former office, and jerked a thumb.

"Let's talk."

* * *

Gardner had been admitted to the commandant's office many times in the course of these past four tortuous years. Being one of the most "dangerous enemies of the state"—that is, he was an intellectual—the Dominion tyrants had paid great expense to ensure that his acumen and spirit would be forever shattered in this prison, such that he could never think coherently again or utter another word against the Dominion.

He had been very close to breaking—perhaps in a few months; if the Raiders had arrived just a bit later, they would have found a brain-dead vegetable. But now, his mind was still functioning, and the past half hour was enough to absolve himself of the past four years and for him to reassume whatever tatters of intellectualism and intellect that he had left at his hand.

The commandant's office had some prominent changes—an oily, almost black, bloodstain was still dripping its way down the wall, there were some brass casings on the carpet, and the Dominion flag on the flagstand had been hastily exchanged for a new flag—a three-pronged trident intercepting a shield. Undoubtedly the colors of the Raiders.

Raynor made his way over to the commandant's former chair, then promptly collapsed in his power armor, the chair sagging audibly under the man's mechanical bulk.

"Doc … Austin Gardner? University of Brontes?"

"Yes", he said testily, "_Professor_ Gardner, not just 'Doc', if you please, sir."

"I came all this way just to save ya", said the revolutionary.

"If you came here just to save me, I'd expect you know my name better."

Raynor raised an eyebrow.

"Not sure why you're so … testy—expected ya to be damned grateful that we busted ya outta here. 'Neways, Professor. To save a lot of time, I'm here for one reason."

"Okay."

"We need your help", said Raynor, leaning forward on the table and giving his most sincere look, with that cigarette still stuck between his lips.

Gardner waited for some kind of punctuating remark—when Raynor offered none, Gardner looked at him quizzically.

"Despite what my CV would lead you to think, I'm not some kind of biological warfare whiz."

"What's a CV?" asked Raynor absently.

"Never mind", said Gardner firmly. "Yes, my research was in biology; proteins. I don't have any know-how to whip some kind of biological weapon of mass destruction out of my ass. I can't understand why you'd want me."

"Didn't those proteins—uhh, _prions_ or som'thing, be used as weapons once?"

"Yes, on Earth, when spongiform encephalopathy was used as a discreet biological warfare weapon in 2080 in Africa, when it ended up killing a fifth of the continent's population in twenty years. And no, I don't work on prions. My work is strictly academic. No biological weapons or anything. To be frank, not to sound rude, I'd much rather prefer to leave this place right away and find my family."

_If they're still alive_.

"Yeah, yeah, all in good time", said Raynor slowly.

Gardner's temper flared at the thought of his family and this impudent rebel standing before him. "Your attitude is starting to piss me off—_sir_."

Raynor's expression hardened—he chucked out the cigarette onto the carpet.

"Okay, enough with the games, 'Professor'. I didn't come all this way for nothing or to ask ya for some biological weapons. I'm here because I read what you wrote four years ago about the Dominion."

Gardner remembered with crystalline clarity those words—those words that had ended in the complete shutdown of the University by the Dominion and his own abduction and torture.

"I don't really want to talk about that now", he admitted.

"Hey", said Raynor firmly. The rebel pounded the table—the mechanical strength afforded by his articulated armor made spider cracks flutter through the wooden table. He leveled an armored finger at Gardner.

"I lost thirty-one good men and women fetching your ass outta this goddamn place. The least you can do is pay some respect and look me in the eye when I talk."

Gardner met the rebel's incendiary stare.

Raynor began.

"Four years ago, you wrote on a supposedly-private diary your thoughts about the Dominion and the regime change after Mengsk took over. A student hacker browsing the secure University cyberspace found your diary … put 'em online."

Gardner squeezed shut his eyes—four years of solitary desolation had afforded thousands of chances to consider everything from every perspective. If he was right, wrong. If he had damned himself to this hellish fate or if it was the Dominion that had. As they said, when everyone around you is insane, then you might be the last sane person alive. In the end, manacled to the walls, he had admitted to himself his own complicity—he only had himself to blame for his own virtual death in this prison and the overthrow of the entire University.

"Millions of citizens read your words in days, and agreed with you. When Dominion Domestic Intelligence traced the source of that traffic and found you, they invaded your campus, put you and every other faculty member, staff, and student in jail. Your life was over, and the lives of tens of thousands of others."

"I'm not into politics", whispered Gardner; recalling the very words he screamed at the Dominion marines as they dragged him into the awaiting dropship.

"Clearly, you knew something", said Raynor sharply. "Now, listen to me—Everyone knows that you knew something on the inside. They still talk about it on the 'net to this very day. How a university professor like you knew so much that you posted in your diary."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Don't play stupid, doc", said Raynor bluntly. "In the first few months after 'His Majesty' took power, he began purges just as bad as the 'ethnic cleansing' that the UED did back on Old Terra. Killed off Korhalian politicians that he was allied with—Mengsk used them to boost up the Sons of Korhal, and when he didn't need them anymore in the Dominion, got rid of 'em. Killed ex-Confederates that surrendered to him but he didn't like. Imprisoned every which advocate of free speech, intellectual, and even semi-noteworthy political figure that might one day oppose him. Abducted every child with psionic potential. A preemptive strike to consolidate his empire."

"You knew what was going on. You wrote about planets and places that were gonna be 'cleansed' a week before it actually happened. Predicted which Dominion politicians and military commanders were gonna be stabbed in the back by Mengsk… you did it way in advance."

"I'm a scientist. It's my job to be predictive" defended Gardner.

"Bullshit, 'Doc'. You science types just gaze into fuckin' crystal balls all day in your ivory tower."

Gardner's calloused fingers clenched.

"Now, Doc. There's two hypotheses that everyone's talkin' about. Either you are a teep", said Raynor, referring to the vernacular descriptor for a telepath, "or else you got an inside source in the Dominion."

A smile creased Raynor's lips.

"Either one is good for me. But for goddarn sure you're not a teep."

"And how do you know that?"

"I … have experience in conversations dealing with teeps. And you sure as hell aren't one. Indeed, Doc, if you were a teep, I wouldn't be talkin' to you right now. You'd either be in the Ghost Program now or else be one of those corpses lying outside the Academy; one of the ones that didn't make the meat grinder."

"So—all I gotta know is the name of your source. Then you can go."

"What do you mean … '_then_' I can go?"

"I want the name of your fuckin' source!" spat Raynor acridly. He leveled a finger at the emaciated doctor apposed to him. "You have no fuckin' idea what the past four years have been! You've been sitting here in your goddamn prison, working out everyday and watching the 'Net, getting to feel sorry for yourself. I've been to hell and back. You have no fuckin' idea—"

Raynor began to tick off the worlds on fingers. "Mar Sara. Antiga Prime. Tarsonis. Char. Aiur. Korhal. Urona Sigma. Left, right, up, down. Zerg, Protoss, Dominion, Confederates, UED. Day, night. Livin', dying. Good, bad."

"I gotta kill Mengsk", muttered Raynor under his breath.

Gardner eyed the rebel leader curiously; something within the volatile man had clearly snapped.

"I gotta kill Mengsk!" burst Raynor, leveling a trembling finger at Gardner. "And you're gonna tell me the source ya got. I've lost one _thousand_, three hundred and fifty hour men in these last fuckin' four years… I know they'll follow me, but things are stretchin' thin."

Gardner's sigh was like one he proffered to the many shortsighted students who failed to appreciate his classes.

"If I may ask, 'sir'. What're you fighting for?"

"To _fuckin_' kill Mengsk! He took everything! From me. From us. From every man, woman, and child in the Korprulu" ranted the firebrand.

Gardner asked, "Are you familiar with Guevara? Marcos?"

"No. Should I be?"

The academic shook his head crossly.

"These were revolutionary leaders on Old Earth, five hundred years ago. Not just fighters—at heart, they were intellectuals. Academics, writers, political theorists."

Raynor's laugh was bitter.

"Pansy ass types. You think Mengsk's Dominion is going to fall just by organizing some rallies?"

"Ignorant", spat Gardner.

Raynor's expression hardened.

"Go fuck yourself, Professor", he said callously. "I know your kind very well. All talk, but nothing happens. You'll cry out all day that the Dominion is terrible but don't even have the heart to pull the trigger. I regret rescuing you from Chenoweth. It's clear you're fuckin' useless."

"I thank you for rescuing me", replied Gardner. "I'm truly thankful."

"But what I see disgusts me to the core. These people—Guevara, Marcos—liberated entire countries on Old Earth. They fought because the government ostracized the people, left them bereft of resources and land until the capitalist corporations extracted extravagant sums from the people for just a few drops of water. Guevara, Marcos, and all the others of their generation were not fighters at heart. They were intellectuals—abhorred by what they saw until they were compelled by their conscience to engineer an entirely new way of life."

"I know the 'Raiders' from before I went into the gulag", admitted Gardner. "When I was writing that diary, I was following all the revolutionary groups in the Sector in the hopes that somehow, someway that someone was reading and would be motivated to fight. When I looked into the Raiders, all I saw was that they were led by a firebrand who carelessly threw the lives of his troops away on Char in the blind pursuit of a girl he once knew—and then afterwards, continued to cast aside his troops in reckless rage to kill a man who had once wronged him long ago."

"You're outta your fuckin' mind if you think Mengsk is a saint", snarled Raynor. Nevertheless, Gardner saw the veins of madness pulse through Raynor's face; the rebel was livid.

"Mengsk is no saint, but neither are you. He's bent on killing you, and you're bent on killing him, no matter the cost. He'd trade away a thousand men in a farfetched attempt to kill you, and you'd just do the same. You're both as terrible—coldhearted chauvinists who care nothing for the lives of your fellow man and who have made their point of existence just to kill other people."

"No plans for even what'll you do after you overthrow Mengk. What, you'll replace the government of the Dominion with the command infrastructure of a ragtag rebel group?"

Raynor snapped, "A democracy, of course."

"You don't know the first thing about setting up a democracy. You didn't even go to college. Whatever's left of your mental acumen is bent on inventing new ways to kill other people and blindly lusting after some girl. Don't lie to yourself, 'General'. You're an assassin bent on killing Mengsk. You have no plans to transform the Korpulu into a better place."

"And of course, you, the brilliant university professor, have some fantastic scheme for this fuckin' place?"

"You read my diary. I have theoretical articulations of what could happen. But if the Dominion is overthrown by a revolutionary group of criminals, maniacs, and mercenaries I surely know that whatever comes will be even worse than what we have today. Overthrowing an empire just to replace it with even more despotic regime that in ten years' time will fall apart again and lead to even more bloodshed."

"I wanted to help a long time ago, when I wrote that diary. I really did. Every night I'd think about the things I wrote—and when they actually happened days later, I could never stop seeing those people. Maybe I could have done something to warn them instead of keeping my diary private."

"But that was a long time ago, Raynor. Four years have been a long time. What little help I did back then translated into the imprisonment or deaths of tens of thousands at the University—everybody I knew in my life, everyone that I didn't know. Change's gonna come one day, but I'm not going to be the one bringing it about, and neither are you."

Gardner paused.

"My time is better spent elsewhere than advising some guerillas. You've given me a new life, Raynor—but I'm going to use it differently. Unless you intend to keep me with you against your will?"

Raynor stood up.

"Thirty soldiers gave their lives gladly to save you in the hopes that you'd bring us a better future. All we needed was your source."

"I hope that you die slowly, Professor."

Raynor's screed was interrupted by the keen wail of the base's alarm klaxons—almost immediately, two marines swept into the room. Raynor turned his back on the threadbare professor entirely.

"General! _Hyperion_ is on comm one, priority alert."

"Matt, this is Jimmy. Go."

"_Bandit Six_, _this is Hyperion. Multiple orbital contacts—Dominion warships_."

Raynor bounded upwards from the chair in a single, fluid motion—Gardner had no idea how, entombed within such ponderous power armor—that the man could move with such agility.

"How many?"

"_A full carrier battle group, Bandit; twelve contacts in total of various classifications._"

"Shit! How'd they respond so fast? We're in the Fringes, for god's sake."

"_No clue, Bandit. We gotta get you and all the prisoners outta there. Snatch and grab—can't stay here for long. But we're pinned in the gravity well. Unless we make a move soon, we're gonna be pinned_."

"Where's Perry's group?"

"_Too far away._"

"Gimme a moment, Matt."

There was a pause. "_Bandit, Tactical advises me that if we don't reach in orbit in three minutes that we're going to be intercepted before we can reach FTL._"

Though superficially sounding like another of the other countless Dominion traps that he'd cleverly sprung himself out of since Tarsonis, Raynor felt a nauseating wave slide down his esophagus—the Raiders had always assigned Raynor an aura of invincibility for all the _deus ex machina_-esque tricks he'd pulled from his sleeve or how extraordinary contingencies always seemed to rescue them. On Char, the Protoss had been there to save him. When the UED came and were chasing him through the warp gate, the Protoss once again interceded on his behalf. Always at the last moment had brilliant beams fallen from the skies to vaporize all the aggressors and save the day. Raynor was no officer—he was a former marshal. Each time he'd devised a clever stratagem to outwit pursuing Dominion forces, and was greeted by a cheer of laughter from his crew and a round of drinks at the _Hyperion_'s cantina, he knew sickly within him that it was going to be his last. His bag of seemingly bottomless tricks had been running thin—

And now—the tricks had run out. He had four hundred men in the "Task Force Bandit" that had stormed LSA Chenoweth, plus a multitude of liberated political prisoners that was so vast that they hadn't even tallied the numbers yet. There was no way that the dropships could make enough serial flights to bring them aboard in the next hour—much less the next three minutes. Even organizing only the Raiders at the designated LZs and arranging the dropship serials would take far longer than a few minutes.

With an uncommon clarity, Raynor had always knew that the end would be anticlimactic—only a small flame being snuffed out without significance. No last, valiant battle to punctuate the end of his betroubled existence. In the past four years, he had thought about his death many times—had never believed it would actually happen. A numbing pulse ran down him—though the thought of death brought him immaculate precision and his veins were thundering with adrenaline, he knew there was nothing else to be done.

When his mouth moved, his words were reflexive, disconnected from his brain; speaking the words of one who was already dead. He was just going through the motions.

"How long will it take you to reach orbit?"

Raynor knew the answer already—certainly around three minutes, for a planet with a gravity well such as Bountiful's own. There wasn't even any time to collect even a single flight of dropship ferries; it they didn't take off now, the dozen Dominion warships would close in, pin _Hyperion_ against the curvature of Bountiful's planet, and then consume them all.

"Matt, take off now, ya hear me? Take _Nike_ and _Sprite_ with you", ordered Raynor, referring to the two frigates that they'd retrofitted as troopships to help carry the soldiers needed for the prison attack. "We can take care of ourselves."

Raynor already knew the certain reply.

"No. Not without you."

Part of him railed at Horner for his blind idealism—another was simply too drained of the fight to care anymore; after Tarsonis—after Kerrigan—and now, _this_; rescuing a professor just to have him snidely turn his back against him with Dominion forces rushing down upon him—what remained was only a mortal shell with no more heart.

"Horner, you have to lift off. This isn't like the other times—listen to Tactical and get the hell outta dodge. We'll slip away and regroup with you at the rendezvous later, OK?"

"Negative. We're going to collect one pass of dropships, then haul out of here. Get on right away, sir."

Raynor's temper—frayed by Gardner's snide impudence and now the obvious fatality of the situation—was now unleashed.

"Matt! Don't fuck with me here, buddy. We're not gonna fuckin' make it, OK? We're as good as fuckin' dead. Everyone that's not onboard that cruiser is already dead."

The two Marines next to Raynor stared at him with empty, horrified expressions, but he had little care for them.

"If you don't go now, not only we're gonna die, but everyone aboard _Hyperion_ is gonna fuckin' die too. Now, go!"

Raynor severed the channel, turning to a third Marine that had now entered the room, completely ignoring Gardner and the two stunned Raiders.

"Major Pereira."

"General, sir."

"We're not gonna make this easy for them. Rally the task force. Prepare to defend the installation."

* * *

Gardner laid there limply in his chair in the commandant's office, unmoving, as the gauss rifle fire blazed all around him. Corybantic, depraved cries filled the air—metallic hypersonic shrieks heralding the entrance of Dominion fighter craft, strafing the rebel-held prison. Brilliant flashes overwhelmed the day, blotting out all the sunlight for brief moments as pyrotechnics consumed the scattered Raiders attempting to hold their position against the descending waves of fighters and dropships. The Dominion vessels advanced downwards in steadfast lockstep, undeterred by the muzzle flashes from the ground—seraphim with judgment and retribution in hand, cauterizing all before them.

The _Hyperion_, its massive angular silhouette interrupting the clouds, ceaselessly engaged the Dominion craft decanting from orbit. Sheets of crimson laser fire engaged pirouetting fighter craft and supported the few surviving Raiders that were still fighting at the crenellations of the prison. Spectacular floral displays of tangerine fire burst in the air as anti-air weapons flared and discharged their volleys into the skies.

It was a technological orgy of mass destruction, executed with precision and lethal efficiency. Mangled screams filled the air, piercing the relentless pounding of gauss rifle fire. Fighters vaporized in fiery displays, rocketing shrapnel all over the prison grounds. Nevertheless, the bulbous prows of the Dominion dropships descended to the ground, copulating their lethal armored loads as the Marines advanced into the darkness of the prison.

Later, there was not much left. The rifle fire had all but ceased—and peculiarly, _Hyperion_'s batteries were slowly becoming dormant, as if a lethal disease had afflicted the mechanical behemoth that stood sentinel in the skies.

There was the unmistakable double flash of a thermonuclear eruption in the skies—_Hyperion_'s visage flickered. Blue-white incandescence erupted forward, geysers of fire erupting from within the vessel and piercing the armored epidermis of the warship. Then, a blood red irregular billow—an apocalyptic ugly bloodstain etched in the skies.

Gardner hoped that Raynor had found his peace—his own last thoughts were for his wife and daughter.

* * *

**Notes Added in Proof**: In these "_notes added in proof_" sections (publication vocabulary for text added to a scientific paper that is not in the original paper but rather is added on in response to other miscellaneous events or updates), in the tradition of other authors on this site, I will be adding additional details regarding points of the backstory that are unclear, notes on the military vocabulary employed here, etc...

Richard Gardner's name is a portmanteau (of sorts) of Austin Smith and Richard Gardner: look up who these remarkable people are! (The former is from Cambridge, the latter is from Oxford).

The title of the chapter, "Bend Sinister", is in homage to the eponymous semiclassic novel written by Vladimir Nabokov. While "Bend Sinister" is a heraldic device, here (as in Nabokov's novel), sinister is also an obvious plot reference.

Regarding "_Bandit Six_"; in military vernacular at the platoon level and upwards, "_Six_" refers to the commanding officer of a unit, and at higher levels, "_Five_" may also refer to the second-in-command of a unit. "_Bandit_" refers to Task Force Bandit, the battalion-size element that Raynor's Raiders used on the Chenoweth assault. (The callsign "Bandit Six" is thus assigned to Raynor when he uses the task force-wide command net).

The dialogue between Gardner and Raynor is inspired by some of my favorite authors, Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri (you should look them up too!) Hardt and Negri have authored some very brilliant works on revolution and democracy (the revolutionaries of the modern day).

In the list of worlds that Raynor is ranting about, "Urona Sigma" may have been unfamiliar. It is a major plot location in the _Starcraft_ comics that Raynor's Raiders encounter in their travels.


	2. Ring of Fire

**CHAPTER TWO**

**RING OF FIRE**

"A war to create and maintain social order can have no end. It must involve the continuous, uninterrupted exercise of power and violence."

Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri (2004), _Multitude_

_

* * *

_

_**Hyperion**_**, proximal to Logistical Support Area Chenoweth**

**Bountiful, 36 Aegis System, Korprulu Sector**

THE _Hyperion_'s corridors were quixotic—crystalline chandeliers hung on the ceilings instead of combat lightings, and halcyon classical paintings framed by gold ingot were mounted on walls, apposed to combat viewports and fire extinguishers. Verdant plants had been planted periodically along the length of equatorial corridors that themselves were decked with maroon carpentry.

When in Mengsk's service four years ago, _Hyperion_ had embodied Mengsk and all he represented. A tool of war, yet refined in classical style—as much as it was about utility and warfighting as it was about couture and style. It was a testament to the sophistication of bygone halcyon days, with its tiled walls and stained glass panes. Though Aurora had memorized the deck layout of a _Behemoth_-class battlecruiser such as _Hyperion_'s, there was a quaint and fantastic feeling about fighting aboard the vessel, as if she was not aboard a military vessel but rather that she was conducting fire movements through an art gallery or museum.

The Dominion commandos and Raynor's Raiders aboard the vessel had little care for their surroundings, relentlessly throwing themselves at one another with reckless abandon aboard the vessel. Fragmentation grenades set oil paintings afire with liquefied shrapnel. Marble door handles disintegrated as their cognate doors were blown apart. The tempest that ensconced Aurora was absurd and ridiculous if not for its lethality—Dominion and insurgent forces in combat power armor frantically darting through marble corridors and exchanging gauss rounds through tapestries and iron reliefs.

And it was through such a maelstrom that Aurora incisively excelled. She moved with the deliberate purpose of murder—every movement exacting, each stride precise. There was an aesthetic economy of force to her feline motions as she strode through _Hyperion_'s sumptuous halls. Four years had refined and tempested her body into an agile saber, sixty kilograms of hardened muscle and bone, decisive in intent and penetrating in motion.

Through this inchoate flurry of randomly ricocheting gauss rifle rounds and punctuating explosions, not even her environmental suit's adaptive camouflage offered any enduring security—only speed.

Sprinting through the chaotic melée, her right hand found purchase on the neck of an insurgent crewman who leapt from behind a corner to assail the half-invisible blurred phantom flitting through the halls. As he leapt towards her, her right forearm autonomously sliced across his windpipe, temporarily stunning him while her free left hand grasped the hilt of a combat knife on her utilities belt and sank it into his sternum. The Raider sank backwards as the shock overtook him—and as a gurgling black liquid began to crease his overalls where the knife had found its mark. Aurora took the moment to snap a shot from her canister rifle—at point blank range against an unarmored organic target, the 25mm high explosive shell's explosion dislodged his internal viscera and left a ragged constellation of bodily fluids on the wall as the chestless figure fell to its knees.

There was no dispatch to be tendered to the noncombatant personnel of Raynor's Raiders that were resisting the boarding Dominion special operations forces—if they chose to resist, there was nothing in the rules of engagement to prevent the Dominion soldiers from retaliating. And this crewman's valor—attempting to seize a Dominion operative in a ghost's environmental suit—had been summarily paid for with his life.

The impromptu resistance put up by various crewmen had been easily dispatched by Aurora thus far, but as she arrowed her way to the aft compartments of the vessel, the rebels were beginning to recover from the shock of the rapid boarding and were now rallying military-trained personnel in CMC-type powered armor suits.

The CMC-type armored exoskeletons had been a deciding turning point in terran warfare. Insurgency had become an afterthought—how many unarmored personnel, like disillusioned rebels, would be required to take on even a single Marine in a half-ton fully sealed armored suit? The 5.56mm and 7.62mm caliber ammunition had been reclassified to "light caliber"—an inordinate number of "standard" rounds wouldn't even put a dent in a CMC suit, whereas a single round from a Marine's "Impaler" hypersonic gauss rifle—fired with the same kinetic energy as a former .50-caliber "heavy machine gun" of olden days—could kill any man or woman that wasn't in comparable power armor.

Ghost operatives entirely subverted such rational military doctrine—in any contest between Aurora, a 15-year-old psionic in a lightly armored hostile environment suit whose only function was to provide shelter from the elements—and a CMC-protected Marine, there was no contest.

The hulking metal behemoth, its armor decorated in the prominent scarlet of Raynor's Raiders—bent to one side of the marble statue of the upraised centaur to take aim at the half-blurred feminine figure running towards him at wild abandon. Aurora perceived the ponderous brute, and while the rebel adjusted his aim slightly, her canister rifle whined a singular report at the sliver of moment peaking out behind the lofty statue—the HE round make a glancing impact on what was exposed of the man—his left shoulder, and the round detonated with climatic effect, blowing off his arm and disemboweling him in a crimson display of liberated blood. The 25mm round's explosion—designated to penetrate even light vehicular armor—also shattered the ponderous marble statue that the Marine was taking cover behind. The centaur—uplifted on its equine feet and with a spear in hand—spectacularly shattered in a fiery conflagration, with massive pieces raining down on the Marine, bringing him out of the cruel circumstances of the world.

What remained in the hallway was a small pyramid of irregularly sized marble, draped over whatever was left of the Marine—a severed hand that had been blown by the explosion all the way to the other side of the hall served as a grim reminder of the consequences of opposing the murderess that now freely strode down _Hyperion_'s halls.

* * *

The communications chatter—once a controlled, calm series of affirmations and confirmations as the Dominion special operations boarding craft breached the vessel—was now reaching an unruly tempest as the commandos engaged their rebel counterparts in an ever more confusing labyrinth of hallways, catwalks, dormitories, observation decks, and art galleries.

Gauss rifle fire pelted down one of _Hyperion_'s central equatorial hallways—these hallways, running all the way down from the fore of the battlecruiser to its most aft compartments—offered an uninterrupted line of sight and thus were the site of some of the most lethal exchanges between the Dominion commandos and their opponents.

"_One-One, Phantom One-Three. Request CASEVAC for one man down, over._ _BP Foxtrot is receiving effective fire from all positions—we cannot maintain the blocking position for…"_

Lieutenant Commander Ives exchanged frustrated glances with his senior noncom in charge—Senior Chief Petty Officer Castle. Castle took the liberty to reply to One-Three.

"One-Three, One-One here. Keep your dick in your pants. One-One out."

Since the Raiders had pilfered the battlecruiser from the Dylarian Shipyards four years ago, they had appeared to have made numerous modifications to the vessel—hidden passageways through which they could ambush attackers, safe rooms resistant to attack—that were now frustrating the carefully planned advance. Of Castle's sixteen man Naval Special Warfare platoon, the three other fire maneuver elements had become indisposed, caught up in frantic fighting against desperate rebels that were on the cusp of losing their only home.

"McKnight!" called out Ives.

"Ka-boom, baby!"

The commando—designated as the grenadier for the fireteam—was outfitted in one of the venerable CMC-540 "Five-Four" armored assault exoskeletons that the Marines' "Marauders" wore on planetside operations.

"Suppress", ordered Ives. The officer addressed the two other operators with deft hand motions—"fire maneuver forward."

As the erratic rattle of gauss rifle rounds slowed, McKnight leaned out from the makeshift cover that Phantom One-One had erected—and hefted the "Punisher" grenade launchers that had been appended to each of his arms. As the launchers flared and brilliant flashes lit at the Raiders' makeshift barricade at the far end of the hall, the remaining operators nimbly darted forward, hugging the walls while advancing continuously.

Ives' reflex sight found themselves centered on the faceplate of a rebel trooper, his visor garishly painted with a hydralisk's leering jaws—his armored fingers caressed the trigger, and he felt his armor's forearms compensate for the rattle of the gauss rifle as it holed its target. There was surprisingly little sound or mechanical percussion to mark the accurate shots—Naval Special Warfare's gauss rifles, by practice were often outfitted with a flash/sound suppressor. Though this decreased their shock effect when attempting to suppress enemies, they prevented the enemy from identifying the shooter's position by muzzle flash or rifle report. This was especially of effect when the commandos were attempting to fire from concealed positions—such as when they were hugging the walls while McKnight drew the enemy fire with his grenade launchers. Assailed by the concussion grenades landing amongst them and the silent hail of gauss rifle fire, the enemy position crumpled.

The 9mm rifle spikes deconvoluted the hydralisk's leering jaws on the rebel's faceplate, tearing through the polarized glass and prompting ejecta of blood to spurt up from the torn glass. The rebel didn't immediately fall—his CMC power armor kept his limp body locked in an upright position, until the next of McKnight's concussion grenades threw his body across the hall.

As all the visible enemies fell, the commandos rapidly advanced, treading dead bodies left in the hall from previous engagements, keen to advance upon the makeshift rebel barricade—rifle sights trained for when a dying rebel would suddenly gain the strength to lurch himself upwards from the floor to fire one last salvo. There were no such Raiders alive—the eerily accurate and surreptitious bursts of fire from the Naval Special Warfare operators had all met their mark. Ives and Castle advanced gingerly at the vanguard position, keeping close to the walls, while McKnight—in his ungainly Marauder suit—followed behind, and Shapiro lagged slightly behind, his designated marksman's rifle trained on the barricades and any enemies that might dart in.

There were none. The barricade was an abattoir—though the Raiders had the impression that they were suppressing the four diminutive Dominion commandos at the far end of the hall before the infrequency of the return fire, it had been to the contrary. The apparent lack of return fire had been the product of the commandos' suppressed rifles, and dozens of Raiders had rushed to the barricade, only to be struck down by silent rounds and then replaced by more waves of defenders who thought they'd been winning the fight. The end result was a messy tangle of armored Marines and unarmored crewmen at the barricade—their chests, heads, or limbs all marked by the characteristic bloody cavitations left by hypersonic gauss rifle rounds.

The barricade had also featured above the sandbags a mounted heavy machine gun—the Dominion troops had frequently lured the Raiders to man it, just for Shapiro to instantly strike down the hapless gunner with a prepositioned sniper round.

The mass of rebel bodies had been guarding a heavy blast door—when the equatorial corridor reached its terminus and melded into the Engineering section of the vessel; where the armories and the fusion reactor plant was.

"Shapiro—field of fire, aft. McKnight, Castle, prepare for breach."

As the sharpshooter turned to covered the corridor they'd just treaded down, McKnight and Castle stacked to apposed sides of the blast door.

"Six, One-One. Veronica—I say again—_veronica_, over."

Their commanding officer reciprocated their sitrep promptly.

"_One-One, Six. We believe that they're trying to arm fox sierra mechanism behind those doors. Four-Five will RV with you at your location and continue the push on OBJ Black._"

"Rendezvous… where?" asked Ives.

* * *

From the maintenance catwalk above the choke point corridor, Aurora gazed down upon the gangly collection of figures—some armored, some unarmored—rallying in well-defended firing positions to assail the Dominion forces about to burst through the blast door.

In the background, Aurora saw a short, torpid figure waving about—obviously the coordinator of this last-ditch stand while the Raiders armed the thermonuclear fail-safe of the battlecruiser to annihilate the few standing insurgents while destroying the several hundred special operations personnel storming the vessel. Undoubtedly, in the rebels' minds, a glorious last stand and sacrifice worth some memory and praise for successive terrorists to remember; how Raynor's Raiders had burned out and taken several hundred Dominion commandos with them.

Aurora knew the swarthy rebel officer at the center of the hallway well—with his rotund belly, one of his arms replaced with a massive pincer, and the eye goggles pushed up on his crown of hair and his ragged mustache. Through the perception afforded through psionics, his fear and desperation was like a beacon burning through the night. He was assigned as one of the high-value targets (HVTs) that the Contingency Strike Force was prioritized to eliminate, and felt a small vindictive thrill as she shouldered the canister rifle and indiscriminately aimed at Rory Swann's obese figure as he desperately waved for more crewmen to throw away their lives to give time for the thermonuclear self-destruct to be initialized.

Frantic shouting bubbled from Swann's earpiece as another officer belted at him from elsewhere in the _Hyperion_.

"_Swann, you gotta hold 'em! How much longer 'till the reactors are rigged?_"

"Say, another… ten minutes, Matt."

"_We don't have ten goddamn minutes! Do it!"_

There was not even any need to aim—against an unarmored "soft" target, the 25mm HE round functioned like a cluster bomb. As Swann's pulpy figure evaporated in the plume of actinic fire, Aurora did not wait to target the remaining insurgents, who were peeking out from their firing positions at the explosion behind them. Their firing positions—designed to defend against a frontal attack from the door—afforded no security against an assailant firing from above.

There was the _thump_ as the C-191's underslung grenade launcher lobbed a lockdown grenade, cascading the dozen or so rebels with an electromagnetic pulse, and her canister rifle whined as she fired down from the catwalk, obliterating their positions as small conflagrations of 25mm fire tossed away unarmored crewmen and liquefied armored soldiers on impact.

By the time that the blast door involuted from the shaped charges emplaced by Ives and Phantom One-One, the collapsing metal blew in on a macabre assembly of figures, their limbs bent at unnatural angles and charred craters in the floor. As the operators cautiously advanced forward, Ives bent down, examining the remainders of Swann's body before instinctively looking upwards and seeing the pale specter motionless up in the catwalks before she too moved on.

* * *

**Logistical Support Area Chenoweth**

**Terran Dominion Advanced Special Operations Command**

**Bountiful, 36 Aegis System, Korprulu Sector**

The tortuous metal ruins of Camp Chenoweth still bled with acrid smoke—its angular crenellations were still afire. The Dominion soldiers that now strode its breadth cared little for the destroyed disposition of their former military installation—LSA Chenoweth had already served its purpose and now was to be casted aside. The occasional gauss crackle of weapons fire still occasionally punctuated the silence; either insurgents or the occasional inmate that had hid in some bathroom or maintenance shaft now being systematically eradicated. What irregular forces of resistance and dissent had gathered at Chenoweth had been exterminated, now homogenized back into the lawful order desired by the Dominion and its sovereign.

The Special Forces personnel that had led the assault on the rebel-held LSA Chenoweth now stood at the center of its primary courtyard, their objectives already prosecuted—that is, the storming of the fortress and search and destruction of Raynor's Raiders and whatever inmates they'd managed to arm. Now, the Marines were doing their job—policing the fallen weapons and cataloging the surviving inmates; and even they carried out these menial tasks with the typical sluggishness and torpidness that typified the Corps.

Shattered bodies contorted in various unnatural conformations still laid freely in Chenoweth's halls and open spaces—petrified in their final moments of agony, transfixed in eternal abeyance. What few prisoners had survived the assault were now gathered on the flight pads, supplicant before their Marine guards. Yawning maws of twisted metal and pockmarked neosteel battleplate laid mute testament to the speed and decisiveness with which the Dominion's counterattack had been executed—as did the dormant prone bodies on the floor as well as slicks of tarry blood that were congealing. There were still brilliant tangerine lights that flickered on and off within the ruins of the devastated installation—Reapers gathered in "hunter killer" teams of six, using their nitro packs to skirt between buildings and rooftops in search of any survivors evading the lifescans of the Raven UAVs overhead. Meanwhile, Marine infantry sections were systematically sweeping the installation, following predictable and pre-assigned search routines—the regular approach of the Marines, combined with the erratic movements of the bloodthirsty Reapers were designed to intimidate any survivor still evading the Dominion forces.

The primary flight line was still littered with various detritus—discarded bullet casings, supply parcels, and SCV exoskeletons left behind by Raynor's Raiders as some of them had fled the firefights. That they had abandoned the very supplies they'd intended to pirate from LSA Chenoweth was testament to the desperation of their disposition as the Dominion Special Forces had closed in on them.

Lieutenant Commander Ives's Naval Special Warfare platoon was loosely aggregated by the flight line, basking in the undiluted victory of the moment or contemptuously watching their Marine counterparts tediously gather the Raiders' fallen weapons and herd together the prisoners. After the successful disarmament of _Hyperion_'s self-destruct mechanism, Ives and his special operations forces had continued to participate in the S&D operation to clear LSA Chenoweth of remaining resistance—not a single fatality had been incurred amongst his platoon, or for that matter, any of Contingency Strike Force One's special operations personnel involved in the assault.

The ruins of the Dominion installation now became forecasted by a ponderous shadow—a massive leviathan had taken to the skies. It was not _Hyperion_. Ironically, after Special Forces had disarmed the failsafe, Mengsk had ordered the rearming of the failsafe and the hulling of the vessel. The thermonuclear, spectacular destruction of the most visible sign of counter-Dominion insurgency—vaporized in Bountiful's atmosphere. Logic could not be reasoned against the Dominion's sovereign—Special Operations Command and the Unified Intelligence Command had sought to investigate the vessel carefully for any intelligence regarding the Raiders and their possible allies, but in empire, there was only one sovereign and the rest were subjects. _Hyperion_ had been vaporized to cast a pallid glow to Bountiful's sunset and to capitulate the sovereign's orgasmic pleasure at the annihilation of almost all the Raiders.

The leviathan extant in the skies was not _Monarch_, the _Mengsk_-class fleet carrier that was the flagship of the carrier battle group—the supercarrier was far too valuable an asset to keep in the atmosphere, where it would be in range of surface-to-air weapons. The metallic behemoth was the _Hercules_-class battlecruiser _Vizier_—its metal rind was studded with the protrusions of heavy mounted laser batteries, its length running with brilliant cyan lights. There was a flurry of activity at its midsections—the massive heavy cruiser let loose something from its abdomen.

As the dropship descended from the smog-obscured skies, Ives made it out clearly; it was a vessel of the make of the M99 _Foray_-class special operations dropships, the variant of the Marine Corps' "medivac dropship" repurposed for clandestine insertion, resupply, and extraction of surfaceborne special operations forces.

It alighted adroitly on the flight line, making a precise three-point landing while its slur of its rotors slowed—the deafening sonic scream of the dropship's engines quieted, and a single figure dexterously hopped off from the troop compartment.

"Commodore, sir."

Military regulations forbade saluting in combat zones—it instantly identified COs to enemy snipers—but the man before them had little regard for such stipulations. There was something about his movements or mannerisms—an enviable surety, some might say—that he knew he would never get hurt nor wounded in this warzone. Unlike all the other Dominion officers striding across Chenoweth, ensconced within the comfortable protective CMC battle suits—he simply wore unarmored fatigues. His uniform was in the pixilated cyan and aquamarine digital camouflage that was currently the popular favorite amongst Naval Special Warfare Command, and over his sternum, he had a distinctive singular black star. The rank insignia for Rear Admiral (Lower Half)—or, more simply, Commodore.

The crimson combat lighting of the Foray's troop compartment illuminated the man as he deftly made his way down the troop ramp. As he stepped beyond the dropship's shadow, Bountiful's sunlight defined his features more crisply—he had a head of tousled black hair framing a thoughtful asian face, inset with two curious chocolate eyes that wandered the scene before him, watching for details.

The man was the architect of the victory on Bountiful. Certainly neither the Marines or the Navy were keen nor decisive enough to engineer the rapid deployment to 36 Aegis and the consequential attack. Indeed, when Mengsk and his advisors commissioned the Dominion Armed Forces to eradicate Raynor and similar insurgents, they knew that many of the Dominion officers hardly had the intellectual tenacity nor resolve to run their prey aground. Many were like the late General Edmund Duke—trained watchdogs that were petty sycophants and well trained only at listening to orders. Another breed of men were required for counterinsurgency. Those with the perceptiveness to hear of the quiet movements of the rebel fighters, with the intellectual sophistication to devise operations and schemes to locate and cauterize them, and with the initiative and sheer decisiveness to orchestrate the entire counterinsurgency campaign.

Commodore Kawika Son was one of the rare officers in the Dominion with such qualities. Indeed, many considered him arguably the most skilled counterinsurgency and counterterrorism officer in the late Confederacy. He had many qualities one might consider peculiar—most notable of which he was "non-augmented"—he was completely bereft of any psionic perception aptitude. While many considered Ghost officers to be skilled at counterinsurgency, Commodore Son managed to eclipse their skills even without the supernatural perception afforded with psionics. He was also unusual amongst the hammerheads that dominated the military in his academic pedigree—a first honors graduate from the University of Tarsonis, he had later earned a Masters' at the Duke School of Interplanetary Relations shortly thereafter. Men in academia with such training rarely voluntarily submitted themselves to the bloody chaos and bureaucracy of the military. Son used his acumen like a rapier to cut through the bureaucracy and general stupidity that characterized the Confederacy, time and time again wielding small Special Forces units like sabers to cut the heart out of nascent insurgencies in the Outer Rim, frustrating members at the Ghost Program who were unable to accomplish feats despite the multi-billion credit investment placed in them to foster their psionic talents and to impart them with the most _au courant_ technological augmentations.

During his service with the late Confederacy in Naval Special Warfare, Commodore Son had apprehended or liquefied various insurgent and criminal elements for his military masters—thankfully, he had rarely been involved in counterinsurgency operations against the nascent Sons of Korhal. When Mengsk had taken power, his advisors had told him of Kawika Son. Mengsk had not risen to his station without some degree of perception, and knowing that the stability of the future empire would be conditional on a firm counterinsurgency force, he had come to Son with his customary silken tongue, brandishing all sorts of material pleasures and moral reasons, asking him to join the Dominion military.

Son was unflattered by the Emperor's advances, but nevertheless acquiesced. Mengsk, realizing the tremendous potential of the special operations commander, had given him free rein to ruthlessly crush rebel threats to the growing Dominion. Son had shamelessly taken off the dusty covers of his counterinsurgency talents that he had used for the Confederacy, and now redirected his sights on anti-Dominion threats. Some said such behavior was diagnostic of a cold amorality—he was a sniper rifle in service of whatever was the ruling power in the Korprulu Sector.

In his several years of service alongside Son, Lieutenant Commander Ives was unsure of the moral grounds of the Special Forces commander, but knew one thing for certain—Son did not report to any military chain of command and did not answer to the Joint Forces Command, the multiservice "high command" of the Dominion military. Instead, he answered directly to Mengsk and the highest tiers of Dominion government—he flitted across the Korprulu Sector, a decisive specter of his own volition, ridding threats then moving to the next challenge. Mengsk in turn had given him unlimited autonomy and even his own specialized unit—the so-called "Contingency Strike Force One" (CSF-1), otherwise known as "Task Force 830" to the un-initiated. CSF-1 was Son's own rapier, entrusted to him to pierce all Dominion foes. It enjoyed unrestricted movement and no limitations on its operational methods. Son recruited all sorts of Special Forces personnel, Ghosts, and various military and intelligence operatives into the task force—handpicked for their unique talents. It was a testament to Son's sphere of influence and decisiveness that nearly one-quarter of the Dominion's Ghost personnel—sixty Ghost operators—were subordinated to CSF-1, completing assassination and reconnaissance missions at the behest of Commodore Son, himself not even a psionic.

And Ives knew that if nothing, Son was brutally creative in his longitude and latitude of strategy and thinking. Techniques completely lost to the traditional military were employed—Son employed a diverse battery of stratagems from labeling weapons and materiel with tracking labels to inventing new forms of chemically assisted torture and interrogation to locate and destroy his foes. Both Son as well as the regular military knew that Commodore Son employed and exploited the "general purpose forces" (that is, the Marines and the Navy) ruthlessly as pawns in his chess game of counterinsurgency. Son answered to no Marine nor Navy commander and paid no heed for their welfare or requirements, using the Navy as chariots to distant fields of battle and Marines as expendable shock troops in high-risk operations. The military was well aware of the privileged status that Son enjoyed and that he could commandeer their units at will, and in turn loathed Son and the various SF units of the Contingency Strike Force.

Nevertheless, it was clear that the Marines and Navy were entirely incapable of ever possibly accomplishing any counterinsurgency on their own. It had been Son, through his listening web of informants and various other intelligence sources, that had heard of the almost negligible communications disruption to LSA Chenoweth and had immediately ordered the redeployment of the _Monarch_ carrier battle group and CSF-1 to Bountiful immediately.

The Vice Admiral commanding the carrier battle group had taken great offense that his vessels had been hijacked by the imperious Special Forces commander (who was two pay grades beneath him) to investigate a "communications disruption" with the Chenoweth prison—and yet, now, as a consequence of this, they had finally trapped Raynor's Raiders on Bountiful … they had run their prey aground and were drawing the noose tightly.

"Commander", said Son sharply, in his characteristic terse fashion. "Bravo zulu."

It was Navy jargon for "_well done_"—from the mouth of the Special Forces commander, it was the highest praise.

"Thank you, sir."

The commodore now pivoted to address the cell of five Ghosts astride Ives's sixteen man platoon—Ives recognized Aurora's phantasmic visage amongst one of them.

"Artemis."

When the female Ghost spoke, her voice was a soft, almost androgynous monotone. "Two hundred and fifty three rebel casualties have been accounted for. There is no sign of Raynor nor any other high-value targets."

Son's expression did not slacken—he followed her train of thought immediately. "From the number of dropships involved in the attack, there was likely a battalion-level force involved in the operation. This leaves nearly one third of the rebels unaccounted for."

"Sir", answered Artemis.

The commodore turned to Ives. "Concur or dispute, Commander?"

"Concur, sir."

"Tactical should be able to reconstruct the battle from the recon optics aboard our vessels, but if the Raiders are on the move, then there's no time", mused Son aloud.

"They couldn't have used airborne transports nor surfaceborne transports to flee—we would've intercepted them by air. The only possible conclusion is that they fled underground … or they're still here."

"Impossible", said Ives. "The Raven UAVs are airborne. Thermal confirms that the only contacts here are either ours, or the prisoners we've all accounted for."

"Nonsense. Technological means of surveillance are faultable and are easily deceived—say, if there is a cryogenics room here, or else…"

Artemis interrupted brusquely.

"I have Four-Seven on the line. There is an obvious avenue of escape for the rebels—a public transit monorail connects to the subbasement of the prison."

"What the _fuck?_" burst McCastle.

"During Chenoweth's construction, it was used to ferry construction workers from the nearby city to here", explained Artemis pedantically. "Now, it's mostly used for educational trips from the city to view the prisons."

"Tir Nanog", said Commodore Son immediately—during the brief flight to 36 Aegis, he had surveilled available maps of LSA Chenoweth's surroundings intensely. "The closest metropolis … and 400,000 inhabitants. One of the largest population centers on this side of the planet."

"All transportation must be shut down", snapped Son. "We might already be too late."

He turned to his facilitator—a Master Chief Petty Officer who emerged from the same Foray dropship. "Open the comm to the Governor's office, the local CM commander, the _Monarch_, and 616 Marine HQ. Secure."

"Sir."

"Have they been briefed on the contingency plan?"

"Plan November may be executed with immediate effect, sir."

Son shook his crossly. "That's stupid. Put them all on the line, immediately."

They entered the comm chanel just as Lieutenant General Murray—Commander of the 616th Marine Expeditionary Force—began his pompous creed to Governor Tomlinson; the mayor of Tir Nanog.

"Governor Tomlinson… this is General Murray, Six-One-Six Marines. Under the authority of HQ Joint Forces Command Korhal, I am relieving you of your authority. I hereby commandeer all and any civil defense assets in Tir Nanog to apprehend or neutralize known rebel threats that are within the vicinity of your…"

"Belay that order", snapped Son.

"Excuse me?"

"Governor—I am Rear Admiral Kawika Son, Contingency Strike Force. Please forgive the General for his rash words. There is no imposition of martial law going on here. You and your staff maintain full responsibility for Tir Nanog."

"As you may have heard", said Son quickly, "the 616th Marine Division and the Contingency Strike Force have landed on-planet recently to deal with a small event at Camp Chenoweth, several kilometers beyond your suburbs."

"Yes", said Tomlinson. "In fact, I was a bit surprised to hear from our spaceport radar operators that a Dominion carrier battle group had arrived in orbit. To be candid, I thought that there was to be an armed overthrow of our—"

Son once again bit off a putrid curse for Murray and the impetuous flag officers that populated the Marines and the Navy.

"No, of course not, Governor. We apologize for arriving unannounced… there was an urgent matter at Chenoweth that demanded our unscheduled entry to your system."

"Commodore!" barked Murray. "You are way out of your—"

Son's facilitator removed the 616 Division's headquarters from the comm circuit.

"There's been reports of fighting at Chenoweth", said Tomlinson leadingly.

"Yes. I'm sure that your advisors have informed you of a thermonuclear detonation in the atmosphere. It was a rebel cruiser that we were forced to engage and destroy", said Son. "Again, we very much apologize for not being able to liaise with your office and give you prior warning. The rapid tempo of military operations has caught up with us."

"I am speaking to you regarding a matter of your personal interest", said the Commodore.

"Yes, and?"

"Actionable intelligence suggests that there is a contingent of highly dangerous, well armed, and very prominent rebels that have fled our counterinsurgency operation and are taking refuge within your city."

"And who might these rebels be?"

"Is this line secure?" asked Son theatrically.

"Of course", replied Tomlinson pompously.

"James Raynor, and Raynor's Raiders."

The conversation skipped a beat as Ives exchanged glances to Castle as to how the civilian administrator might react. Whether Tomlinson was taking some money from the rebels on the side, and needed to be—

The lull became curiously long, though Ives perceived it was not maliceful; rather now, hopeful. He could almost imagine the civilian licking his lips.

"Raynor… in my city?"

"Yes", said Son tersely. "He's escaped our forces and is taking refuge in your city."

"He… must be stopped", said Tomlinson, as if thinking to himself aloud. "If Raynor were to be captured, in Tir Nanog, this would mean…"

"The eternal patronage of Tir Nanog by the Terran Dominion. I'm sure that the Emperor would be forever indebted to _you_", and almost as an afterthought, "your staff for helping capture Public Enemy Number One in Dominion space. Raynor has long eluded us, but with your help…"

"We could get him", said Tomlinson. "He's in our city—we know this place like the back of our hands. We could get him!"

Ives had no question that Tomlinson was envisioning his promotion to planetary governor or even sector governor under Mengsk's purview. Power was the strongest aphrodisiac to these unstructured, weak minded sycophants that ended up in the middle rungs of civil service. Desperate not to get demoted to the lower rungs, and filled with almost a sexual need to be recognized for their efforts and then to ascend to government positions undeserving of them.

Tomlinson said, "We have to cut all transport right away—air traffic, land traffic, public transport. Lock him down… before he escapes Tir Nanog".

_And my grasp and area of responsibility_.

Ives knew then that Son had already seduced Tomlinson to eat from his own hand. Now that the governor realized that the capture of Raynor was his free ticket to Korhal and promotion to prelate, he knew with a sure certainty that Tomlinson would be just as desperate as the Special Forces to apprehend Raynor.

"Very good", said Son.

"That's not enough", said Tomlinson, of his own accord. "Admiral, we need your troops to circle Tir Nanog. Shoot down anyone that tries to run. Then send in some of your elite soldiers to search him out. We have 400,000 citizens here. You'll need to deploy your finest technological assets to sniff him out. Tell you what—our constabulary and militia are well respected here on Bountiful. If you send your Marines and they do some searches alongside our own civil defense personnel, it'll get the citizens here accustomed to seeing Dominion troops. Won't cause any problems."

"Thank you", said Son graciously. "We can count on your cooperation, then, Governor?"

"Certainly", said Governor Tomlinson—Ives could almost imagine him as a mangy canine enthusiastically bobbing his head. "Just let us know what you need. We'll use this channel to talk… and now, let me call my head of transportation. Need to kill all inbound and outbound traffic."

The line went dead, and all gazes went to Son.

"Excellent compromise, sir" remarked the Master Chief.

Son shook his head. "Compromise, no. We got everything we wanted. I got him to do everything I would want to—except he's saying it out of his own mouth, not me. We have played to his ego and ambitions. Tomlinson's now in our camp. If General Murray and the Marines had marched into the city to oust him and install martial law, Raynor would've almost certainly gotten away."

"Raynor's ours now."

* * *

In the dank of the motel room, a lone feminine figure whispered in the shadows, her voice barely perceptible over the tremor of her own pulse. She nervously pealed back the curtains to admit a tangerine vein of sunlight into the room—only to see the all-too-familiar outline of a Dominion dropship soar in the skies.

"Ariadne here. The asset is here, but Dominion forces are surrounding the city and are here en masse, over."

"_Separate Raynor away from his men—keep out of sight from both the Raiders and the Dominion. Once you have him, we will extract your team. Contact us on the modulating bandwidth once the asset has been secured._ _Golf whiskey._"

"It will be done. I authenticate quebec november sierra. Ariadne out."

"_Harbinger out._"

* * *

**Notes Added in Proof**: This chapter has not been proofread yet, but I will finalize it shortly (I finished its rough draft while on a long plane flight). The relationship with Governor Tomlinson and associated dialogue needs some revision.

Kawika Son's rank of "commodore" may be unfamiliar. The rank of "commodore" has had a variegated usage by the U.S. Navy, but I use it here to replace the rank Rear Admiral (Lower Half). (Doesn't it seem more stylish to call someone "Commodore" rather than "Rear Admiral"?)

The final exchange of words between "Ariadne" and "Harbinger" is a modification on standard U.S. Army calls for fire and fire mission requests; specifically, the final authentication for a fire mission authorization.


	3. The New Resistance

**CHAPTER THREE**

**THE NEW RESISTANCE**

"The beginning of all things are small. _Ominium rerum principia parva stunt._"

Cicero (43-106 BC), _De Finibus Bonorum et Malorum_

_

* * *

_

**Hardheart Café, Downtown Tir Nanog **

**Bountiful, 36 Aegis System, Korprulu Sector**

THERE was commotion by the doorway—instinctively, Raynor and the remainder of his men went for their weapons, ensconced in their booth in the dim of the Hardheart Café. Raynor felt the cold metal of his handgun under his calloused fingers—the revolver had a single bullet left, one last round left to dispatch the hierarch that had disposed of Kerrigan—but it looked like he might have to use it up sooner.

Still keeping his eyes trained on the doorway, he spoke sideways to his newly promoted second in command; Major Iván Pereira. "Check it out, Five."

"Roger that, Six", replied Pereira, the '_six_' referring to the military vernacular of any unit's commanding officer.

As Pereira stood—a lethal-looking gauss pistol in his hand—and obscured their vision of the door as he stalked to see the bouncer about what the trouble was, Raynor sighed and creased his sweat-laden eyebrow. He shiftily regarded the twenty or so men that were still with him at the Hardheart Café—all that had survived from the hasty retreat from Camp Chenoweth onto Bountiful's monorail system to Tir Nanog. They'd shed their power armor—lest they instantly attract attention by barging onto a midway subway with CMC combat suits—and then made their way to the metropolis. Some of the survivors in Raynor's outfit used to be from Bountiful, dragged into the Confederate Marine Corps as part of a massive forced conscription ("grab, wipe, and play" program, referring to the mindwipe and resoc procedures of the Marines' crude conscription programs) operation.

As the shit had gone down with the Great War, then the Brood War and Mengsk's betrayal, many of the resocced Marines from Bountiful had eventually defected to the Dominion as Dominion agents told them that they'd been abducted and resocced by the Confederacy. Once their "programming" had been pharmacologically wiped, these Confederate troops had signed up with the Dominion. And after they'd seen how Mengsk had thrown Kerrigan, Raynor, and Mike Liberty out like dirty laundry, they'd joined up with Raynor.

These Bountiful vets knew the best places to keep low in Tir Nanog—the Hardheart Café was one of them. Before they sat down for midday drinks (the day they lost _Hyperion_ and goddamn near lost the entire Raiders outfit was the best day to get hammered), Raynor had found that the pub indeed had many attractive avenues of escape. And the brew—"Wraith Whiskey", referring to the popular DF/A-17 Wraith starfighters—wasn't half bad, nor were the deep-fried wings, which were creatively named "Muta Wings", referring again to zerg mutalisks. The proprietor obviously had military experience and a wry sense of humor.

A cute waitress with a short skirt and a perky smile sauntered by their table.

"What can I get for you? Want to try our Firebat 'Fries?"

Raynor rolled his eyes and waved her away.

"No, thanks."

Lifting the grimy glass to his lips and letting the acrid ale trickle into his mouth, the shock of alcohol did not dull the throbbing pain, but rather Raynor found that it accentuated it, bringing him to realize their present situation with immaculate clarity. Here they were—a well-organized rebel organization, the tattered remnants of which had lost their flagship and were currently drinking at noontime in a desolated pub. When Horner—bless his heart—had reported that the Dominion carrier battle group had arrived in orbit, Raynor had never been so sure of his death. Now that he had escaped his certain ending, there was a strange sense of liberation, of carefreeness—that he had once again eluded lethal circumstances, and thus, he was living on borrowed time. But with this insouciance, he could not fight off damning guilt.

Matt Horner, Rory Swann, Egon Stentman, and all the rest were dead.

He didn't realize what it meant yet—but he knew that later tonight, as he drained the last strains from his bottle and collapsed into the motel's bed, closing his eyes, forgetting reality and immersing himself into the reality of his own thoughts, that he wouldn't forget their—

"Look who it is", said a voice of malice.

Raynor whirled around, all pretense abandoned, his revolver raised in the air.

And was surprised to see Pereira—gauss pistol in one hand, the other free hand cletching the cloak of an all-too-familiar figure. The remainder of the Raiders drew their weapons in a single, fluid motion. As Raynor inconspicuously cast his gaze from side to side to see how the other patrons were reacting, he saw they didn't give a damn—just another lunchtime gang execution.

"You can kill him—just don't break anything", sauntered out a voice from the bar; the witty proprietor at work again.

The writhing man in Pereira's tight grip had features evocative of a man that Raynor loathed—from the crown of oily obsidian hair speckled with grey strands and the plush, unscarred palms that bespoke of a lifetime bereft of manual labor—though his anxious, terrified expression was chiaroscuro to the previously snide and arrogant expression that Raynor had last seen on him.

"Professor Gardner. I see that you join our company again."

"Let. Me. Go!"

Pereira roughly let the elderly academic go, causing the man to collapse in a heap on the floor as he gingerly stood on uneven feet, expression wild with anger and with blood and saliva flecked over his hollow cheeks.

"Let me ask you something", said Raynor. "How much did they pay you?"

"What?"

"Perhaps you assume that all of us… '_others_' without a degree are stupid."

Raynor's sarcastic comment coaxed some malicious snorts from his assembled soldiers.

"But, 'ya know, I've been piecing things together from a few hours ago. And you very conveniently showing up on our doorstep only lends confidence to the conclusion of mine."

"What conclusion?" asked Gardner pedantically.

"Cuz, first—that room I found you in. It was a saferoom, I realize now. You shoulda been in the prison cells with the rest of the convicts. I find it very curious why, when we attacked, you somehow were in an armored and locked saferoom, all by your lonesome."

"I escaped from my cell", boiled Gardner.

There were titters of laughter.

"Yeah. Okay there. You… escaped from your guards and made your way up there, just for me to conveniently find you?"

"Yes."

"And the fact that the Dominion kept you in a saferoom—"

"They didn't put me in a fuckin' saferoom."

"—combined with your coldness. I shoulda recognized when you rejected us. That shit you were saying. No rational man would've said that to us when we rescued them. The only reason that someone would be so cold when he was being rescued from the Dominion… would be if that person was _working _for the Dominion", concluded Raynor.

"Are you going to let me defend myself, or are you going to ramble on with your crackpot ideas?"

"And now… you very conveniently escape a prison full of battling Raiders and Dominion troops, somehow follow us on the monorail, and then track us all the way here. Out of four hundred thousand people in this fuckin' city… you somehow find us here. Look here, Gardner, it doesn't take a teep to figure out that you're on someone else's leash. Working like a bitch for someone else."

"If you think I'm working for the Dominion, you're fucking crazy", denied Gardner.

"I'm fuckin' crazy?" asked Raynor dramatically, gesturing to himself with his revolver.

He looked at Pereira.

"Whaddya think, Five?"

Pereira nodded. "This guy was turned. When do you want me to kill 'em?"

"After we cut off his balls!" erupted one of the Raiders.

"Look, here", said Raynor. "Professor Gardner… you have cost me. Very dearly." A mad, twisted rage began to dement his words.

He ticked off his fingers. "_Hyperion_. _Nike_. _Sprite_. One thousand crewmen… and nearly three hundred and fifty soldiers. One could say that you destroyed Raynor's Raiders here on Bountiful… and being Raynor, I _don't_ like when somebody—_fucks!_—with my Raiders."

"I didn't kill anyone."

"Oh yeah, right. You just lured us here to Bountiful, got an entire Dominion battle group called in, got all of us fuckin' massacred against a legion of enemy troops. Nope, this is what every fuckin' day is like for us, you think?"

Pereira cocked his gauss pistol at Gardner's withered head.

"Please, listen to what you're saying", said Gardner, a small peal of pleading entering his voice. "I didn't ask you to come here to Bountiful. You came of your own accord."

"And you _fucked us_, Professor Gardner!" exploded Raynor. "I've lost everything because of you—lost all of my fuckin' men, lost my fuckin' ship. You destroyed my life!"

"_I_ didn't do anything, the Dominion did—"

"Wrong fuckin' answer!" snapped Raynor. His voice was slurred—Gardner realized that he was inebriated.

He turned to Pereira. "Do your thing. Get this motherfucker outta here. He's blocking the light."

"General, sir", acknowledged Major Pereira. "Come, doctor, your head has an appointment with the bathroom toilet."

The situation had deteriorated almost instantaneously—Gardner had found himself in a reversal of fortune. He had fled the wild crossfire at Chenoweth, furious at being abandoned—and by the peculiarities of circumstance, had stumbled upon the rebel kingpin. He had, for a moment, thought that Raynor would be his salvation—until he had seen the rebel commander's disposition. Gardner had, in his analysis, realized that he had failed to fully appreciate the precariousness of Raynor's situation. Undoubtedly, the massacre of his entire rebel movement had derailed the commander more than Gardner had cared to holistically appreciate.

As Pereira's hand formed a vice grip scissoring on his trachea and the rebel officer impassively dragged his flailing figure away from the rebels, who looked down upon him coldly—Raynor had already turned away and was taking massive swings from his ale—Gardner realized that he was about to die at the hands of this brutish enforcer if he enacted no effective action. The ephemerality of life had never been so impressed on him—one moment, walking through the door of a bar, now being carried to his unsightly execution in the men's room. If not for the adrenaline and anger bubbling in his veins and marrow, he would have found his change in circumstances curious, perhaps even humorous.

"No!"

His voice was lost in a gargle as Pereira tightening his grip on his windpipe and unceremoniously banged Gardner's head on the door that was going to lead them into the bathroom and his metaphorical guillotine, choking in the feces-infested water of some toilet.

While he still had control of his mental faculties before the fear totally took over his autonomous nervous system, he cried "_I'll tell you my source!_"

* * *

As Pereira hauled away the pathetic Dominion agent to his death, Raynor tipped the glass into his mouth, extracting every heliotrope droplet of the liquid, feeling the tinge of alcohol on his breath as he sat back in his seat with a sigh, feeling the blood pool.

Some chaotic noises—Gardner's whining voice, undoubtedly pleading for some respite before Pereira waterboarded him, castrated him, then shot him.

Not looking in anyone in particular, he asked airily, "What did the fucktard say?"

One of the marines grumbled, "Says he'll tell us his source of som'ing like that."

There was another frantic cry and a string of words as Pereira slammed the man again violently against the bathroom door, too bothered to actually open the door with his hands and instead letting Gardner's head do the opening.

"What did he say again?"

"Says that the source was…"

The Marine regarded Raynor seriously. "He says his source was his wife."

Raynor sighed. This day was becoming far too convoluted and heavy for him. Enough shit filled today to fill a year's worth of shit.

"Jesus Christ. Okay, tell Five to back off. Sit the fucker down over here."

* * *

Pereira and another Raider dumped Gardner's figure on a chair facing the booth of twenty or so Raiders—trickles of uncoagulated blood ran freely from his torn lips, the intellectual had a necrotic swelling in one of his eyes, and his golden overcoat had turned several shades darker—it was soaked with toilet water. Raynor saw that Pereira had decided to acquaint Gardner with the execution routine's earliest phases before finally letting him go. Gardner was collapsed in the chair, head limp on the table, breathing ragged.

"Your wife?" asked Pereira incredulously.

"That's fuckin' right", replied Gardner defensively, cracking open his eyes. The beating he received was like a sexual violation—another humiliation atop how the Dominion had broken him in the past four years.

"Pretty convenient", commented Raynor airily. "Let's no end to the shit, huh? Your kind can't take pain—you'll say anything even if it keeps you alive for a second longer."

"I swear to fuckin' god, man."

There was a beat—Gardner saw that the Raiders' bizarre collection of firearms were still squarely leveled at him. He tried to straighten himself, look authoritative—anything that might make them believe he was telling the truth.

"Her name was Danielle Gardner neé Wilson. I just called her 'Dana'."

"Explain how she got access to the Dominion's most highly classified kill orders and OPORDS", belted Raynor.

"She was a Wrangler", explained Gardner—his voice was slow as his mind processed the words his mouth was saying; the ghosts of the past began to coalesce again in his mind as he remembered who she'd been—what had happened—

"What?" asked one of the gruntish Marines.

"A Wrangler", said Major Pereira for the benefit of the rest. "A low-level psionic, not enough to be a Ghost, but enough to seek out other psionics. The Ursa Academy uses them to track down 'gifted kids' for recruitment", he said, referring to the current Dominion Ghost Academy on Ursa IV.

"Right", said Gardner. "But at the time, she… was with the Confederacy. When Mengsk took over the Program"—referring to the Ghost Program's handle name—"most of the Wranglers jumped ship. Before I was captured… she had been working for the Dominion for a few months."

"Save the fuckin' tears for yourself", said Raynor cuttingly. "No one cares that you got locked up. I wanna hear about your wife. So how did she get access to the OPORDS and the Combined Effects Priority Target List?"

"She was working alongside Dominion forces, and she was a teep. She could 'hear' the officers talking about their orders."

Pereira said authoritatively, "Impossible. Most wranglers don't have PI to listen to thoughts. If your wife had enough PI to be telepathic, she would've been in the fuckin' Ghost Program itself."

"Rare exceptions", said Gardner without a trace of a smile. "She didn't want to become a Ghost—when the Confeds administered the 'Psionic Aptitude Test' to her as a kid, she'd heard enough about what going into the Program entailed. She faked her score to be a bit lower than it really was—got posted to the Wranglers instead. Searching for other kiddos to kidnap to become Ghosts."

"But yeah, for sure she was a teep. That was… how we were together. She knew everything on the tip of my tongue before I said it—exactly how I felt. I think that it was the… first time anyone really understood me. Really knew me."

Though Pereira's expression was still scrunched in implacable fury, Gardner observed silently that the demeanor on Raynor's face had changed—he didn't have to guess to think about what memories of his own that Gardner's words were invoking from within the guerilla.

"Yes", said Raynor suddenly. The power structure had changed, though few of them could perceive it—Gardner felt somehow that Raynor now had some confidence in him.

"So your wife 'heard' their thoughts?"

"Yes. It was… much safer than anyone actually trying to break into a mainframe or crack the security or something. The Dominion officers did all of that to get their orders on the CEPTL and Mengsk's kill orders. It was much easier to simply skim the orders from these officers' minds after they'd done all the work to retrieve and decrypt their orders."

"At first, she couldn't help it, you know? Dana said it was being a teep—you can't stop hearing everyone's thoughts around you. For a few weeks, it was OK. Business as usual, just more SF officers getting assassination orders. But then, she became scared—the names she heard began popping up on the news as people who were killed in car crashes or shuttle accidents. This was the base of a massive, systematized assassination program that was going to kill off everyone that might even have a second thought against the Dominion. And she was listening to all of it—people's names being whispered just days before they were gonna disappear. It was like listening to Satan and who he was going to take away tomorrow. When Dana heard a name, that person just vaporized a little while later."

"When did you become informed about the nature of the CEPTL program?" asked Raynor.

"It was hard at first", admitted Gardner. "Dana—my wife and I—were not very close. We hadn't talked for a long time."

"And why's that?"

Gardner painfully closed his eyes. "Please don't ask."

"I need to make sure you're telling the truth", continued Raynor coolly. "So, if you would please."

The Raiders had stopped their vulgar cajoling.

"Well, I was there at the University on Brontes. And Dana was away, flying on some battlecruiser or something with a thousand fit, clean-shaven Dominion grunts onboard. She was cute—and when she heard people's thoughts, if she could read their orders, she could definitely hear what they thought about her body and what they wanted to do to her. It didn't take me a long time to think that while she was on deployment she was sleeping around like a—" He couldn't stop himself. "_Whore_."

The word ricocheted in his mind, echoing—the word bringing back the memories of a petty slap on his face, the arguments at night, the feeling of—

"Please, this is enough. You have your memories and I have mine. No matter what you think of me, please respect me."

"A conceivable contingency", admitted Raynor. There was a faraway look to the man's eyes—Gardner realized that the two of them—both being with a teep once—had much in common; perhaps something exploitable in the future.

"We can skip this part if you want."

"Yes, thank you" replied Gardner. "Anyways, we had our years together—a little girl too—and then things… kind of drifted apart. Like entropy—everything eventually becomes a bit loose at the seams. It was easy getting used to her not being there; I was used to her being on 'deployment' all the time, so she was never at home."

"But one night when I came home to my flat, I found her there, waiting for me. It'd been—far too many years since I last saw her. She was very beautiful; you had no idea what she meant to me."

"My heart leapt to see her—I thought she'd had come back to apologize, but after a moment, I realized I didn't give a damn anymore if she apologized or not. I would've done anything to hang onto her—live in the present, let the past be bygones. But then she told me about CEPTL and the hit list."

"She was scared?"

"Yes. Very. She had… well, she claimed that she _hated_ me", Gardner biting off the words.

"I thought you hated her."

"Yes. Because of… whatever she did when she was away, and also because, naturally, she was a member of the Confederacy and the Dominion. That's some horrible shit—sensing out 'gifted' kids and marking them to be wrested away in the night. I couldn't live with that, hated her. Dana naturally rebelled and using whatever feminine mental contrivances somehow conceptualized that serving the government—thought it was a dictatorship—was honorable. Well, after CEPTL, she got off her feet, came clean with me and told me everything."

"Did she actually sleep with the Marines?" asked Pereira.

"Yes."

"But—it doesn't matter anymore", Gardner said a bit too quickly.

"Okay. So what happened after that?"

"She went back to her posting—but whenever she 'heard' about the CEPTL or a new kill order, she told me about it. I didn't know what else to do with the information; I knew that it must be preserved so that one day, when the reckoning came, there would be a record of all the atrocities that the Dominion did…"

"So you wrote the diary, and it goes on from there."

"Yes", said Gardner.

There was a pregnant pause.

"Do you know where your wife is?"

"No", replied Gardner. "Don't you remember what I said to you in the Commandant's Office? That's what I wanted to do—find my fuckin' family."

"I remember you said that", said Raynor. "At the time, I thought it was standard bullshit that was being served. I understand now, though."

"Is your wife still with the military and is on the inside?"

"I have no fucking clue. Where do you think I've been for the past four years?"

Raynor looked seriously at Gardner.

"Your wife could be the key of all of this, Professor. If we had someone on the inside—knowing all the Dominion's next moves—"

Raynor's movements became animated with an energy that his men hadn't seen for a very long time.

"We could get this all on the road again. Strike back even harder than we could before. We could know the position of every Dominion asset. Everyone, everything, when, where, why. Everyone they wanted to kill. Where they'll strike next."

The outlaw had holstered his weapon—he turned to Gardner.

"So it looks like there's two of us that wanna find your wife."

"Yes."

"May I … consider you a member of the Raiders, then?"

There were many reasons to say '_no_'. Gardner, with whatever rational faculty left at his disposal, perceived these reasons extremely clearly. Raynor was emotional, off his hook, irrational—blindly groping for the woman he loved, now immortalized into the sepulchral Queen of Blades. Raynor had no whims labeling someone as a Dominion agent, ordering someone's execution, and then a minute later, welcoming him with open arms. There were other reasons too—this was an invitation to join an outlaw terrorist organization against which the entire Dominion Armed Forces were arrayed—this invitation was an invitation to his own coffin. Not to mention, the Raiders' perverted methods of operation. They fought as dirty as the Dominion did—Gardner had no compunctions that any of the Raiders here would mind blowing himself up as a suicide bomber to kill Dominion military personnel.

Yet, there was something… fantastic about the feeling he had now. A heady sense of… freedom? Liberation? Liberation from the confines of prison, from enslavement, from tyranny—perhaps a change could be effected. He was a free man again—and with the Raiders at hand, perhaps… something could be done. That a freedom or transcendent change never before realized in the Korprulu could finally be instated.

Perhaps it was the feeling of loneliness—being alone, away from Dana for all these years, then again in prison—and the prospect of another friend or human being to animate his life.

There were many reasons to say '_no_', and in the end, Gardner didn't care. And as the words trickled from his lips, he felt like this was the consummation of his existence up until now—things were going to change from here on out.

"Yes."

A ribald grin split Raynor's face.

"Fuckin' awesome. Welcome to the crew, Professor Gardner. Welcome to the Raiders… or what's left of it, anyways."

* * *

**Esplanade Court, Downtown Tir Nanog **

**Bountiful, 36 Aegis System, Korprulu Sector**

"Hello there."

The hotel concierge turned to find a young lady standing there askance in the hotel corridor's halls—with a reckless beauty on her young features and sleek raven hair gathered in a slender ponytail, it would be remiss to call her anything but attractive.

She offered a polite smile. "Hi. I'm Ariadne."

"Well, hello there too."

Well, perhaps she wasn't as naïve as she led him to believe—there was a coyness in the smile of her dark lips, and her next words only reified this impression.

"I was… out for dinner at the grille last night, and saw a man by the name of … Austin Gardner, I think. Would you happen to know what room he's staying at?"

When he hesitated, she produced a thousand credit chit from somewhere on her strapless dress and impressed it into his closed hands.

"Thank you", she said curtly. "And now, Gardner's room?"

The concierge expression soured. Undoubtedly, another of the unscrupulous incestuous young women populating Tir Nanog's lower classes, waiting for assignation to yet another romantic liaison—hungry after last night's "dinner" and coming back for more.

The aide stowed away the chit, and produced a handheld—Ariadne was alarmed momentarily that perhaps it was a remote to summon security, but relaxed slightly when she saw that it was one of the hotel's interfaces for guest bookings and housekeeping services.

"Austin Gardner… yes, he checked in several hours ago though." His expression became quizzical. "He wasn't here last night, though. You couldn't have seen him at the hotel grille—he just signed in a bit after noon, today."

A silent sense of alarm was beginning to infect the concierge—this unassuming seductress certainly had malicious intent.

Her bubbly laugh tried to wash away the tension, but failed to dislodge his exponentially rising suspicions. "Oh, probably wasn't last night that I met him… Well, I met him a few nights ago" she said with a conspiratorial wink. "Haven't talked to him in awhile—just want to stop by and say hello."

"Room eight-two-eight", he said, not wanting to have anymore to do with this insidious deal.

"Thank you. And, umm, have you heard of anyone by the name of _Raynor_ that's staying here?"

"Like _James Raynor_?" he asked incredulously.

"No—of course not", she said politely. "Well, thank you for your time."

She flirtatiously turned around—giving him an excellent vista of her toned figure; perhaps unnaturally athletic and toned.

As she stepped away, a handful of anonymously dressed, muscular men fell in behind her, their angular strides clearly betraying them as having martial or military training, and together, they strode upwards on the stairwell in concerted lockstep, gloved hands grasping conspicuous briefcases.

_Oh my God—what've I done to this Gardner?_—thought the concierge as "Ariadne" and her companions departed with lethal intent.

_Or—what are _they_ going to do to him?_

_

* * *

_

**Notes Added in Proof**: This chapter has not been proofread yet, but I will finalize it shortly (I finished its rough draft while on a long plane flight).

"Tir Nanog" refers to the mythological Celtic Land of the Ever Young, capturing the essence of Bountiful's spirited and community-driven culture.

OPORDS is a U.S. Army military acronym for "operations order", an order for a military operation written in a typified and standardized format. The fictional "Joint Effects Priority Target List" is a reference to the real world NATO "Combined Effects Priority List" - in both the series and in real life, both lists are essentially lists of people demarcated for assassination.


	4. Worlds in Collision

**CHAPTER FOUR**

**WORLDS IN COLLISION**

"There's a period in any war between the first blow and the second. It's a quiet moment, an almost tranquil time, when the realization of what has happened is just sinking in and everyone feels they know what happens next. Some prepare to flee. Some prepare to hit back. But no one moves. Not yet. It's a perfect moment, the time when the ball is at the highest point of the throw. The action has been taken, and for one frozen moment everything is moving, but everything is at rest. Then there are those jackasses who can't leave such things alone. And the ball starts downward again, the second blow is thrown, and we plunge into the maelstrom_._"

Michael Liberty (2500), _The Liberty Manifesto_ (Pirated Broadcast)

* * *

**Hardheart Café, Downtown Tir Nanog **

**Bountiful, 36 Aegis System, Korprulu Sector**

THERE was commotion by the doorway—instinctively, Raynor and the remainder of his men went for their weapons, ensconced in their booth in the dim of the Hardheart Café. Raynor felt the cold metal of his handgun under his calloused fingers—the revolver had a single bullet left, one last round left to dispatch the hierarch that had disposed of Kerrigan—but it looked like he might have to use it up sooner.

For in the doorway was the crumpled form of the bouncer, face flushed as if he had been deprived of respiration for quite awhile—and standing in the hallway was the unmistakable diagnostic silhouette of a Dominion Marine in a CMC-400 combat suit. Three black chevrons had been painted on his chestplate against the crimson background of his armor plating, and he had an Impaler gauss rifle in one hand, and behind him, a line of similarly armored soldiers. Visible on his armored buttressed shoulderplate was the phoenix insignia of the 616th Marine Division (Frontier)—and Raynor knew with a sure certainty that there would be no non-violent resolution. Yes, the Raiders had run—now run aground and they would have to face the consequences and the hunters arrayed against them.

"Do you know how to use one of these?" asked Raynor to Gardner, indicating a semiautomatic.

"No."

"Take it anyways."

The Marine sergeant planted himself in the doorway and remonstrated in cutting tones, his voice amplified by his helmet loudspeakers. "Attention! This is a routine search and sweep. Stay seated and place all weapons on the table. We will be coming to check IDs—nothing more. When you're done, you may go back to your business."

_Right. Or else, if you get caught without a valid ID—you're gonna get fucked and ass raped_.

Raynor understood the situation with a pristine clarity. The situation had presented itself, and there was only one method of egress available out of this quagmire.

He stood to address the table, and addressed his men slowly.

"Well, gentlemen—"

There was the frantic rattle of weapons fire nearby—and momentarily, Raynor thought he was dead.

Time skipped a beat, and calmly, Raynor looked down at his hands, flexed them—and found that he was still alive.

When he looked behind him, he saw several figures on the floor below, all firing on the intruding squad of Marines with small arms and an exacting accuracy. Already, the sergeant and the point men in the rifle section were already dead—killed by unarmored "soft" targets whose rounds had found their faceplates and their underlying cerebra. The rest of the Marines were now surging through the door headlong through the unabated fire, placing themselves in the "kill zone" as the anonymous shooters continued their return fire.

Raynor released a breath, then quietly examined his men to the left and to the right—all of the Raiders had their weapons drawn; Major Pereira was foremost amongst them, clutching a 7.62mm assault rifle with a quiet confidence as the curious firefight erupted beneath them.

"Well. Looks like someone else got the same idea. Let's ditch this fuckin' place."

* * *

**Advanced Operating Base Steadfast, Tactical Operations Center **

**Terran Dominion Advanced Special Operations Command**

**Bountiful, 36 Aegis System, Korprulu Sector**

Advanced Operating Base Steadfast (AOB Steadfast)'s extant existence was testament alone to the capacities and capabilities of the special operations logistical units of the Terran Dominion—in the nineteen hours since the capture of LSA Chenoweth at 1913 hours the previous evening, Contingency Strike Force One had deployed three of its five constituent force packages in force on the surface of Bountiful. Each of the deployed force packages numbered approximately sixty special operators and the requisite C2 and logistical personnel to sustain company-level special operations—these were Banshee Troop, Intruder Troop, and Specter Troop. Each of such Troops contained three platoon-size "conventional" (non-psionic) special operations forces and a variable detachment of "augmented" (psionic) special operations personnel (Ghosts) or else paramilitary operations officers from the Unified Intelligence Command.

Battlecruiser _Vizier_ of the _Monarch_ Carrier Battle Group (CBG-25) had already been forward deployed over Tir Nanog in order to provide immediate air interdiction or ground interdiction, should the Raiders make any overt attempt to escape by aircraft or groundborne transport from the city. Arrays of anti-aircraft batteries had already been emplaced by the Marines to encircle the city and enforce the airborne blockade—any aircraft or starship leaving Tir Nanog would be immediately intercepted without question.

The purpose of AOB Steadfast and installations of similar classification being erected around or inside Tir Nanog was to provide operating sites for the special operations forces of Contingency Strike Force One to launch reconnaissance patrols into the city, or should actionable intelligence emerge, conduct direct action raids.

AOB Steadfast had been constructed from what nineteen hours ago was an abandoned network of chemical storehouses and shipping crates nearby Tir Nanog's largest spaceport. In precise synchrony, serial flights of special operations capable Hercules transports had offloaded SCVs of the Special Operations Sustenance Command and modular pre-fabricated Dominion buildings—barracks and starports. The barracks were immediately colonized by the special operations personnel of Phantom Troop, whereas the starports served as forward refueling points for the extended Wraith patrols being flown over the city, as well as overflights by Raven UAVs on surveillance missions.

Meanwhile, the chemical storehouses had been cleared of IEDs and potential flammables, and were retrofitted into a makeshift groundside command-and-control facility for Contingency Strike Force One's headquarters—Commodore Son and his staff. Neosteel battle plate had been welded over pitted and corroded metal, whitewashing the despondent disrepair and turpitude of the warehouses and providing structure and substance for the C2 facility. Multiple sensor towers—phallic electronic sensor hubs and networked relays—studded the grounds at regular intervals, providing the emergent special operations fighting force with its "eyes"; its "ears" were afforded by discrete boutiques of miniaturized communications arrays adapted for special operations usage.

With Tir Nanog now fully in midday, the bloodshot orb of 36 Aegis had now reached its zenith in Bountiful's lucid skies—the towers and crenellations of Tir Nanog were now illuminated with strident light the color of arterial blood. As Commodore Son fixated his attention on the nearby city from the commanding vista afforded by AOB Steadfast's elevated command facilities, he could only divine an ominous portent from the bloodbathen city and the distant mechanical carrion circling its skies. Of the dozens of terrestrial and hostile worlds his campaigns and sojourns had taken him to, few had stars that provided such sinister illumination as Bountiful's own main sequence star of 36 Aegis.

His facilitator found him on the observation deck, hands clasped behind his back as he perused Tir Nanog's inflamed midday skyline.

"Commodore."

"Yes?"

"The 616th Frontier has not yet completed their deployment orders", said the Master Chief curtly.

Turning from the florid spectacle at the window, Son shook his head tersely. "Put them on the line."

An electronic trill met their ears—combat encrypters securing the channel as the secure link initialized.

"General Murray, this is Son. What's your disposition?"

Major General Murray was the Marine two-star commanded the 616th Frontier Division—in chiaroscuro counterdistinction to the special operations forces of Contingency Strike Force One, the Marines had yet to complete their deployment to their preassigned positions around the target city.

Murray's voice sounded as if forged from machine gun bullets. "1st and 3rd RCTs are surfaceborne and combat effective, as is my ADA battalion."

There was a pause. The electronic background noise—stray rogue electrons—became palpable.

"Do you know what a sieve is?" asked Son idly.

"What?"

"A sieve", Son began, "is a basket—with holes. Twelve hours ago, we discussed the appropriate position of the 616th Frontier's battle positions such that there are sufficiently small combat spacings around Tir Nanog. And in this discussion, we came to the conclusion that all four regimental combat teams must be deployed around the city in order to provide sufficient groundside interdiction capabilities.

"Navy is not in command of this operation!" barked Murray, the cyan 3D scanning lasers in the Tactical Operations Center showing that his corrugated cheeks were now inflamed. "We're still trying to offload the remaining regiments from the CBG."

_Perhaps this is the diagnostic feature of incompetence_, thought Son—_irrational and unprovoked frustration elicited in response to inquiries._

"It doesn't matter if I'm from the Navy, Marines, Intelligence Service, or the Colonial Militia. What matters is that Raynor is in that city—and if his contingent tries to make a run on the ground and your Marines aren't there too—"

"Are you threatening me?"

"Yes", said Son wanly. "Perhaps a clarification of command organization would be in order."

"Yes, that would be welcome", said Murray heatedly—finally articulating the inchoate veins of seething distrust and indignance that had arose over the past few months, with this unbridled Special Forces officer impudently driving the reins on an entire Marine Expeditionary Force and Carrier Battle Group.

"Let us be clear here—_Commodore_. The last time I checked with Joint Forces Command, I was a O8", he said, referring to the rank of Major General, "and you were a one star."

"I would advise that you check, then, with Mengsk with who has OPCON for this operation", said Son coolly. "—And I wasn't aware that a higher rank was a license for incompetence. Concur or dispute?"

"Fuck you!"

"I want your remaining regimental combat teams deployed immediately", said Son. "If you are unwilling or unable to comply with this order—"

"I don't take orders from you, Admiral!" barked Murray.

"Commodore", interrupted a quiet voice from behind.

Kawika saw Aurora's silhouette in the tactical operations center, and addressed Murray one last time. "Deploy your forces, General."

He terminated the link.

"Master Sergeant", said Son, addressing his newfound visitor.

Aurora was attired in the matte pixilated grey camouflage Mark V hostile environment suit; the _au courant_ attire for Ghost personnel in the Contingency Strike Force. In the dusky lighting of the TOC, the pulses of cyan light running along the length of her armor were outstanding. Her entrance drew ripples of surprise from the operations staff at the TOC—few had seen Ghost personnel deployed in the field, who were by nature and namesake clandestine and their deployments highly classified—and few could ever address the commanding admiral directly without prelude. The coincidence of these two exceptional circumstances made Aurora's entrance outstanding indeed.

Nevertheless, her young features were deformed with a discomfiting intensity—a open ferality. Her inky black hair was disheveled and there was a peculiar energy about her, a singlemindedness of intent and purpose.

"There's a complication", said Aurora bluntly.

Son regarded the Ghost carefully; though self-assured in his own tactical cognition and strategic perception, the psionics afforded a perception that was literally supernatural. Such precognition, combined with their tactical dexterity, had made the Ghost operators some of the most incisive operational extensions of Son himself. Although regarding them as definitive augurs was perhaps farfetched, it would be a _non sequitir_ to heed no credence to the advice of some of the Dominion's most expertly trained operators.

"Yes?"

"There are other whispers."

"Psionic whispers?" asked Son immediately, entraining himself unto the situation with immediate alacrity.

"Yes", replied Aurora. "Here—in Tir Nanog. I can hear them."

There was a pause as the commodore regarded Aurora seriously—such an extravagant warning from such a petite figure.

"Not our own Ghosts?" he asked incredulously.

"No."

"Zerg?"

"No". Aurora shook her head, the motion shifting her obsidian bangs. "They're too—unstructured. Feral. Even psionically, they radiate only a single intention—to consume. If they were here, it'd be impossible to drown out their voices."

She paused.

"I understand that this is not very quantitative—but I'm absolutely certain. I can hear them talking all the time—someone else is clearly here on Tir Nanog, besides us."

"Protoss?" asked Son.

"I'm not sure", admitted Aurora. "I've never been close enough to one before to hear them."

"The zerg have been known to employ shapeshifters—'changelings'—in various reconnaissance capacities recently", said the commodore. "Could one of them masquerade as a terran psionic?"

"Not sure, sir."

There was a peculiar silence as Son stared at the tactical display distantly, rapping his fingers on the tabletop as his nascent thoughts coalesced into something material—uncertain of what to make of this intelligence; whether it was even actionable. Although he had previously received advice from Ghost operators—often concerning the probable locations of targets, he had thought that was more tactical intuition than any extraordinary perception. This was the first time he had even heard that the Ghosts "heard" other things—and this intelligence was obtained through contrivances and biological faculties that weren't even available to him.

"Do you believe that this is actionable?"

There was a pause, and then she curtly answered—"Yes."

"What do Artemis and the rest 'hear'?" he asked, referring to the commanding officer of Phantom Four, the "augmented" detachment of Phantom Troop.

"Quieter for them. But they definitely hear the movement as well. We're not alone here."

In Son's line of work—counterinsurgency and counterterrorism—his colleagues (as did mercenaries and other similar elements) often described a dependence on hunches or intuition; curiously, Son still excelled in his currently capacities with a strict dependence on rule-based logic and definitive rationale. Indeed, when one saw the products of "intuition" enough, one could see that it was simply the mixture of inherent prejudices, various proclivities, and a small dosage of previous field experiences. A rational analysis of the design and composition of the situation had always enabled Son to succeed in his most audacious operations—he had always considered blind action antithetical to his own set of operating rules.

"Is it possible", he asked, "that Raynor's Raiders have their own psionic?"

"The whispers began shortly after the conclusion of the Chenoweth operation and the fall of the majority of the Raider contingent. They came on-planet last night—I didn't hear anything prior to that."

"If there is a foreign agency involved besides the Raiders, then the fundamental operating assumptions of this operation have changed. This is not a kill-capture operation looking for an encircled and immobilized target. And that these 'voices' have not announced themselves publicly to us suggests that they are operating against us."

"That is a reasonable conclusion."

"Jesus Christ", said Son. "There are any number of third parties that could be involved in this—the Protoss, the Confederate Resistance, Kel-Morians, UED remnants—you take your pick of one out of a hundred assorted rebel groups. While the resources of the Raiders are almost certainly depleted, the resources of such agencies are certainly not. While we envisioned this as a fight against a cornered enemy, such parties have the ability to directly engage us at the tactical level and inflict heavy casualties. Indeed, the presence of Raynor here may only be secondary to their intentions. We don't even know if they're here to kill Raynor as well, or to rescue him. For all we know, they could be using our focus on Raynor as a distraction for a tactical or strategic level strike against our forces, and while we're distracted over Raynor, they could strike a heavy blow."

He turned to the commander of the liaison team from the Navy; a full Commander from the Fifth Fleet Combat Command collocated with the Contingency Strike Force tactical operations center. "What is the status of the orbital blockade?"

"CBG25 is fully deployed", replied the liaison. "With one fleet carrier and four heavy cruisers, the blockade cannot be defeated by any force smaller than two combined battle groups. Fifth Fleet has dispatched a second carrier task force that will be arriving by 2120 hours zulu to reinforce the blockade."

"If Fifth Fleet can hold orbit", said Aurora, "we can almost certainly win any surfaceborne engagement of either conventional or unconventional nature."

"Yes. But that's not what concerns me. That there is a third unknown party in this operation disturbs me—and one whose identity, forces, and even intentions are not even known to us. We betrayed our hand by kicking in the front door with an entire division of Marines. If this had been done by CSF procedure, our presence would be clandestine and we could have full operational mobility to strike wherever and whenever we wished."

"The 616th Frontier's presence was a necessary one to provide a public display of force and maintain the current blockade of Tir Nanog. Operational exigencies and the necessity for a counterforce attack dictated an overt entrance-in-force", replied Aurora.

"Nonetheless, the fundamental grounds of our mission have fundamentally changed", said the Commodore. "There is a third party here—and equipped with psionics, whose identity or intentions remain unknown. We have to move quicker."

* * *

**Esplanade Court, Downtown Tir Nanog **

**Bountiful, 36 Aegis System, Korprulu Sector**

"Nothing here", reported one of the operators. "He's not fuckin' hiding anywhere here."

Ariadne had taken out her concealed sidearm in frustration as her men combed Gardner's quarters—the Esplanade Court was a hotel of sophistication, and obviously their quarry had pilfered some money, probably from the prison, to get himself a room here. Nevertheless, neither Ariadne nor her team members could conceive what his plan had been. To hide out in this hotel room until Dominion Special Forces looked up his name in the guest log and dragged him out of the room?

Because that was what Ariadne had expected of the cravenly academic—yet, Gardner was nowhere to be found within this spacious suite. Her men had searched every visible compartment of the suite and then employed thermals—the man was not here.

And if not here, then where?

There was a frantic crackle over the comm; Ariadne recognized her callsign being hailed—she raised her wrist transceiver to her lips, and spoke quietly.

"Go."

"_Jian, this is Kopis. We've been engaged_—"

A rising crescendo of syncopated weapons fire background attested to their compromised circumstances.

"Kopis, Jian. Extricate and go dark."

"_No!_" the speaker shouted fairly as static threatened to subsume his voice over the clandestine low-power radio channel. "_You don't understand—the assets are here_."

In unison, Ariadne and her men bounded upwards.

"What?"

"_Yes—Gardner and Raynor, both of them_. _They're bolting once the Dominion patrol came. We're holding off the Marines, but they're running away—_"

"What's your AO?" Ariadne exclaimed.

"_Hardheart Café—downtown_."

"We're downtown too. Hold one—we're on the way. Allocate half of your element to maintain your BP, and delegate the other half to pursue the HVTs."

"_Roger! Kopis out._"

Ariadne was already ahead of them as they strode purposefully from Gardner's suite.

"All elements, all elements, this is Jian", she enunciated clearly over the tactical channel and she strode purposefully to the suite's entrance. "Kopis has eyes on the HVTs but is in heavy contact. Converge on the Hardheart Café, I say again—converge on the Hardheart Café. ROE is weapons free."

* * *

**Advanced Operating Base Steadfast, High Value Target Unit Complex **

**Terran Dominion Advanced Special Operations Command**

**Bountiful, 36 Aegis System, Korprulu Sector**

"Nine liner for close air was just thrown down in the city", said Senior Chief Petty Officer Castle, looking up the panoramic array of signals equipment. A pane of crimson light was strobing on the communiqués display—a priority transmission was being broadcast on one of the hundreds of Marine communications channels that the Task Force was monitoring.

"So what?" asked McKnight.

Castle took off his ponderous headset and turned to regard Ives.

"Marine platoon is in heavy contact in the Sprawl—a snoop-and-scoot turned bloody. They're calling for CAS to turn the place into a parking lot."

Ives's habitual response to the Marines' familiarly promiscuous misapplication of firepower—"_fuckin' brain panned faggots_"—was attenuated when he remembered that two of the four personnel of his personal special reconnaissance team were indeed "resocced" themselves. Shapiro and McKnight were certainly dextrous and decisive—yet the two had not been previously indoctrinated into the Reapers if they had any lack of bloodthirstiness. Castle himself was better—formerly a fire control technician aboard _Norad II_ prior to his SF indoctrination, he obvious had at least a technical education.

Naval Special Warfare Group Six—along with the Marines' Force Reconnaissance—were the best "non-augmented" (read: non-psionic) special operations forces in the service of the Dominion, yet Ives had the increasingly bearing perception that these Special Forces organizations were bereft of much organic intelligence. Many of the personnel within them—"brain panned" convicts such as Shapiro and McKnight—were simply cudgels; albeit highly trained, but merely weapons to be wielded by a higher guiding intelligence. The Ghosts (formally known as Special Task Reconnaissance in the verbiage the military was all too found of) were similar—years of physical, technical, and psionic tutelage undoubtedly made these naturally "augmented" personnel creative assassins, yet they were incapable of autonomous operation. Despite significant rank inflation in all three organizations—for example, Ives holding an O4 title (Lieutenant Commander) for a platoon-level billet—Ives tended to think such rank inflation merely reflected field proficiency and not an inherent intelligence. Direction at anything above the operational level was provided by Commodore Son and his subordinates.

Nevertheless, if this was the disposition of Special Forces, then the "rank and file" Marines were certainly in even more despondent circumstances.

"What do they want to bomb?" asked Ives.

"Looking up the grid reference now", said Castle, referring to the six-digit target grid reference provided in the standard request for CAS.

"A downtown location—the 'Hardheart Café' or something another."

"Fucking idiotic", reflected Ives sourly. An airstrike—probably a Banshee strike—against a pub, café, restaurant, or club—would undoubtedly spark a toxic conflagration throughout the metropolis, the nascent flames of indignant anger being wafted until the entire city was in armed insurrection. The Dominion's reputation for care for collateral damage and civilian casualties was already notorious—on par with the Confederacy's (even when the Confederacy of Man had thermonuclearly sterilized Korhal)—and certainly an airstrike against a civilian bar in midday would only reify again the Dominion's contempt for the lives of the citizens of Bountiful.

Indeed, any rational person would be inflamed to hear that a random bar had been bombed. The operative logic that the Marine ground force commander was operating on was impossible for Ives to even conceive.

"DASC better not fuckin' authenticate this", said Ives, referring to the Direct Air Support Center, the primary agency controlling the Marines' close air support while on surface deployment.

Shapiro grunted, "What goonies did the 'rines run up against, anyhow?"

Castle shrugged indifferently.

"Hear it for yourself."

"_Death Head Six, Foxtrot Three-Six. We are in heavy contact at grid eight-six-six-nine-seven-two. Requesting tasking for close air, over._"

"—_Death Head, this is Foxtrot Three-Six! Do you copy, over?_"

"Which maneuver element is Task Force Death Head?" asked Ives.

"616th Frontier, 3rd RCT Armored Infantry, 1st Inf Battalion Reinforced."

"_Three-Six, this is Death Head Six. What's your twenty? Over._"

"I'm guessing", said Ives, "that the 3rd Armored Infantry is from the Confed's Omega Squadron?"

Castle replied, "Probably."

"Fucking idiots". The Confederate Marine Corps' "Omega Squadron", from which Regimental Combat Team Three drew its heritage and heraldry (Omega's nickname was "Death's Head")—were well known for their "unrelenting savagery".

"_Death Head, we are combat ineffective. Multiple friendly KIA! Receiving effective fire from multiple firing points. Estimate a company-sized force._"

"_Three-Six—soft or armored?_"

"_No fuckin' clue!_" burst the volatile platoon commander. "_Three of my sections are already shot to shit—where's the fuckin' air?_"

Ives appraised Castle. "Three CMC-protected rifle sections combat effective? It sounds like a fuckin' warzone, not a snoop n' scoot check for IDs. I'm… very curious about what type of fighting force could engage a Marine infantry platoon in full armor head on, and then render them combat ineffective."

"You think it's Raynor?"

The Lieutenant Commander was already reaching for the comm channel that would connect them with the AOB Steadfast tactical operations center.

"Phantom Zero-Three, Phantom One. Over."

"_One, Zero-Three. Send, over._"

"Ops, I need authorization for a deployment of Phantom One to coordinates to follow—" Ives looked at Castle, and he supplied the necessary coordinates from the Marines' nine-liner, "—map grid eight-six-six-niner-seven-two. I say again, eight-six-six-niner-seven-two. Insertion will be by air assault. Over."

"_One, Zero-Three. What for?_"

"Troops in heavy contact against unknown forces. Reinforce and reconnoiter. Over."

"_Wait one._ _Over._" There was a pause.

"_Affirmative. Deployment authorized and seconded to Phantom Six._"

Ives was motioning to Castle, the senior noncommissioned officer in charge for Phantom One, to begin mobilizing the platoon for immediate deployment. Around him, Shapiro and McKnight were already standing—the other three special reconnaissance teams of Phantom One were undoubtedly mobilizing elsewhere in the HVT Unit Complex, preparing for the reactionary direct action raid.

While striding towards the flight line, Ives spoke, "Ops, I need two Forays for the air assault. Be advised, Foxtrot Three-Six of Task Force Death Head is in heavy contact downtown, and the Marines are considering a CAS option presently."

"_Roger, One. QRF dropships are hot and prepped on the flight line and may be repurposed for you—I'm switching you over to the QRF frequency to brief the pilots for the operation—_"

* * *

**Hardheart Café, Downtown Tir Nanog **

**Bountiful, 36 Aegis System, Korprulu Sector**

From beginning, it was clear to "Kopis" that it was lost—his element was an eight-man plainclothes surveillance unit, trained to conceal and shadow but never for armed combat. The peril of the situation could not be understated—while he and his men were clad in bulletproof vests underneath their various cloaks and jackets of Bountiful clad, opposed to him was entire rifle section of CMC-armored Dominion Marines—who were soon reinforced by three more infantry sections, further accentuating the asymmetries of the extant situation. The majority of his trackers were armed with handguns and submachine guns—light sidearms that could be easily concealed their clothes as weapons in last resort should they be compromised. One of his men, an ex-Special Forces type, had a disassembled sniper rifle in a briefcase that was now made anew and providing accurate suppressive fires. But to call the environment they fought in anymore as the Hardheart Café would've been misleading—the power of the Marines' Impaler gauss rifles was absolutely incredible. Though the majority of the platoon was emplaced in the plaza outside the bar, their rifle spikes punched through the concrete walls effortlessly.

Each salvo of fire was a maelstrom, shredding through concrete, metal, tapestry, and flesh alike, a miniature bombardment going off at perilously close ranges. The Marines' fire was not accurate—it didn't have to be. Each shot was punching through the superstructure of the very building itself, single rounds setting drink dispensers afire or deranging chairs or shredding tables. As the hypersonic gusts of fire tore through the bar, sometimes their silvery streaks connected to flesh—civilians too slow to flee or who were slaughtered _en masse_ even when taking cover; nothing less than neosteel battle plate could afford any protection against even Impaler rounds. Where the hypersonic gauss rifle connected, there were grotesque crimson boutiques as florid blood erupted into the air and organs cavitated under the kinetic energy of the projectiles. If the Dominion platoon was not forced back soon, not only would all of its inhabitants be slaughtered, but the building itself would collapse.

To their credit, not one of Kopis's trackers broke the line—though they were being individually slaughtered as another random gauss rifle shot rang out, their marksmanship was impeccable as they held the line; precise single headshots instantly collapsed lumbering armored Marines with blazing gauss rifles. As the Dominion troops attempted to practice fire movements through the main entrance, armored corpses bent and fell prostrate as they were met with precision fire. Nevertheless, their numbers were far too many—a standard rifle platoon was at least thirty armored Marines as compared to his eight trackers—and they were doubtless to be reinforced soon. And when the Marines flanked through the side entrances and adopted new firing points, he was assured that they'd be slaughtered wholesale.

"_Kopis, Jian._"

He heard Ariadne's diminutive voice trickle from his earpiece, abated by the overwhelming metallic percussion of the Marines firing from outside.

"_Kopis, Jian. Do you read?_"

As his clip was emptied and he feverishly ducked underneath a bar—now a twisted conflagration of shattered wood and metal with tongues of fire lapping away—he shouted back over the deafening hail.

"Jian, Kopis here! In heavy contact!"

There was the rattle of some return fire from weapons whose make he was not immediately familiar with—apparently some denizens of the bar had their own personal weapons and were resisting alongside Team Kopis.

"_Kopis, where are the HVTs?_"

"No fuckin' clue!" he barked. He had dispatched two trackers after Raynor and Gardner at the far end of the bar, but before the entire web of trackers could close on the elusive Raiders and the ex-Dominion convict, the Marine rifle section had interrupted—and Kopis had been forced to engage them.

"What's your ETA, Jian?"

"_Five minutes. Hold on._"

* * *

As soon as the opening shots had fired, there had been a panicked exodus from the Hardheart Café as its occupants—many officer workers, aides, or manual laborers on lunchtime recess or midday break—had fled the sudden and promiscuous crossfire initiated by the Dominion soldiers. Few had escaped the bombardment of gauss rifle rounds—as Raynor dragged him out of the line of fire to the back of the bar and their pre-planned exit route, he saw people tossed about as if ragdolls, the kinetic energy of the hypersonic rounds causing conflagrations of gore at their focal points and deforming their bodies as if pliant plastic. This was undiluted slaughter, in its most quintessential and senseless form.

The Raiders—dressed in discreet miscellanea and all clutching various small arms of various designs—were now deftly fleeing towards their pre-planned escape route towards the flank of the Hardheart Café.

The pace was brutalizing—while Raynor's men, trained with years of military experience, were navigating the labyrinth of doors and hallways with ease, Gardner stumbled upon a loose cord, crumpling to the ground with a pained wince. Four years of exerciseless imprisonment—complexed with the ignomious beating that Pereira had recently administered to him—had broken whatever physical dexterity he had.

"Pereira!" barked Raynor. "Take care of Gardner."

"10-4." The hard-muscled soldier extended him a hand—Gardner looked up distastefully at the face that scarcely twenty minutes ago was gleefully torturing him, and unwillingly accepted his gloved hand and hauled himself up, the exertions coaxing a wheezy heave from his chest.

"Hey", said Gardner as they slipped into the back of the Hardheart—the façade of sophistication had not been installed here, and it was largely shelves of unused foodstuffs and antiquated furniture in bland, drab warehouse-like rooms. "What's the plan?"

"Get the hell outta here", replied Pereira tersely.

"Out of the city or out of the planet?"

"Run out of here first, then think later", said the Major.

The cacophony of gauss rifle fire was becoming muffled as they passed through further, seemingly abandoned backrooms in the Hardheart Café—the twenty-odd party of Raiders was led by several rifle-armed point men who systematically guided them through the rooms and provided vanguard security.

"Hey, Raynor. "Where're we going?" asked Gardner insistently.

"Out of the café." The renegade commander turned around to address him.

"Where to then?"

"Figure it out from there", replied Raynor.

"Are you seriously saying that we're going to run around on the streets of Tir Nanog like this until the Dominion closes in us?"

Peirera looked at him incredulously. "What do you think, Doctor, what we're going to go back into the hotel looking like this, with our guns?"

Gardner ignored him.

"You must seriously have a plan, man."

"Shoot our way out."

"You've gotta be kidding me", said Gardner—amazed at the seeming total ignorance and complete disregard that the firebrand had for their mortally perilous situation. "Is that it? Where are the reinforcements?"

"You're lookin' at them."

A glint of anger flashed in Gardner's eyes. "Are we just going to run outside and get gunned down by the Dominion?"

"What do you want me to do?" snapped Raynor, his brittle temper—tempested by the extraordinary events of the day and yesterday—rising. "Everyone's fuckin' dead as of yesterday evening. Just us now."

"This"—Gardner indicated the troop of fleeing soldiers—"can't be _all_ of Raynor's Raiders, right?"

Raynor turned to stop and look at him with some annoyance.

"Okay. There's one more ship—_Leviathan_-class."

"A battlecruiser?" asked Gardner.

"Yep. _Phoenix's Wing_—our only other heavyweight besides _Hyperion_. Commanded by Rachel. It stayed behind for the Chenoweth operation. Only a few troops aboard, though."

"Have you made contact with her?"

"It's at the rendezvous point—light-years away from 36 Aegis. Last night, when we checked into the motel, we used the extranet and got in touch with them. No way to contact them now, though. The only thing we have now is a military TACSAT capability and an UHF surface-to-air."

"What'd you tell her?"

"To stay the hell away", said Raynor flatly. "There's a goddamn battle group in orbit—one cruiser isn't gonna be able to break through."

Gardner had to no choice but to concur with the fatality of them attempting to extract their party.

"So what now?"

"Get the hell outta Hardheart", said Raynor again. "Run around in downtown for as long as we can. Maybe link up with some local undesirables, get us some refuge."

Gardner's rationality, galvanized by the overbearing pressure of fear, fragmentedly attempted to assert itself over the situation. He tried to still his beating heart, but failed to—his lifetimes' worth of academic training, assurance, and sophistication had completely fled him. As the rifle fire angrily rattled around him and an inexorable pressure viced upon his skull, he found himself utterly incapable of thinking or accessing the mental faculties he had accumulated.

"There's gotta be a plan. What—what about the Colonial Militia? Can they help us? Raynor—weren't you a marshal once?"

Raynor laughed bitterly. "Haven't you heard? The CM is in the pocket of the Dominion now. The Governor wants our heads just as much as Mengsk right now."

"And the populace? Would they help us out?"

"Not like Antiga Prime", said Raynor. "Bountiful's citizens are on good terms with their government—and sure as hell they would've dare lend us a hand when their entire city's been shut down."

"No one else here, Gardner. Just hope we run into enough lucky breaks—just like what happened back there in the café. Enough lucky breaks, and maybe the blockade will fall apart and we'll run outta here. Until then, run."

Gardner many times in his life had felt a certain sense of ineptness—an inability to act, to fight, to survive when juxtaposed with the most perilous of circumstances—perhaps when Danielle first left him, or when he had been arrested by the Dominion. A sickening knowledge that he was committed to one certain dire fate, despite his urge to fight and survive. This was one of these times—and perhaps the most fatal of them all. He realized for once that all the intellect and powers of deductive reasoning that he had were utterly useless when bereft of knowledge. Perhaps with extensive studying of the city's layout, its citizens and their customs, and the disposition of the local Dominion forces, he could have devised a scheme to resist them. Now—running with a pack of twenty rebels, his only belongings his tattered jacket and wetted hair, and a pistol he didn't know or intend to use—he was completely without the understanding or knowledge that could have helped him survive this contingency.

Periera was waving at him.

"Come on. Through this door and we'll be in the alleyway."

* * *

**Notes Added in Proof**: Thank you for the encouraging comments thus far. This chapter is laden of references, and therefore I herein will write an explanation for some of the most outstanding ones.

Probably the most salient one to mention is that the opening quote from _The Liberty Manifesto_ is indeed reproduced word by word from _StarCraft: Liberty's Crusade_ (2002) by Jeff Grubb, which is probably my favorite officially published SC novel.

This chapter's title, "_Worlds in Collision_", is named after Velinovsky's infamous book of the same name, and also serves to mirror the progression of the plot. The callsigns of the anonymous "tracker" teams, _Jian _and _Kopis_, are both the names of various swords, and are in reference to my ongoing collaboration with Actene (_The Galactic Era_). The callsign of the Ghost commander of Phantom Four, _Artemis_, is also in reference to a character contained in the same collaboration with Actene. The 616th Marine Division (Frontier) is named after E-616452, a chemical inhibitor of tgf-beta signaling (see Ichida et al., 2009; _Cell Stem Cell_).

As for the military side, the "9-liner" is indeed the standard format used by U.S. forward air controllers to brief friendly aircraft for close air support (CAS). "Advanced Operating Base" is a type of installation used by a company-sized element of the U.S. Army Special Forces from which an Operational Detachment Bravo (ODB) exercises command and control over a number of ODA field detachments. As per the exclusive usage of AOB Steadfast by the Dominion's special operations forces, to the best of my understanding, real-world AOBs are also restricted to SF usage. Furthermore, the "tactical operations center" (TOC) referenced throughout the story is also a real-world term, and refers to the headquarters of any military installation used by company-level units or above to coordinate operations. Hence, the TOC is what Commodore Son _et al._ use as their immediate command center in AOB Steadfast.

As an additional note, "Contingency Strike Force One" is not named after a real-world military unit (U.S. or otherwise), but rather is a fictional creation. Nevertheless, "contingency strike force" is a U.S. military term used to describe light, highly mobile units that may rapidly and flexibly deploy in response to contingencies.

For clarification at the end, "air assault" in military parlance refers to an airborne (typically heliborne) troop insertion and not an actual aerial strike. The air assaulting of Phantom One into their target zone (the Hardheart) thus only means that they are using a dropship to insert them there.


End file.
